' What a droll expression, 'wearying.'"
"Ah!" said David Dodd.
"You have heard the word before, Mr. Dodd?"
"No, I can't say I have; but I know what it must mean."
"Lying becalmed at the equator, eh! Dodd?" said Bazalgette,
misunderstanding him.
"Mrs. Wilson tells me she has taken a farm a few miles from this."
"Interesting intelligence," said Mrs. Bazalgette.
"And she says she is coming over to see me one of these days, aunt,"
said Lucy, with a droll expression, half arch, half rueful. She added
timidly, "There is no objection to that, is there?"
"None whatever, if she does not make a practice of it; only mind,
these old servants are the greatest pests on earth."
"I remember now," said Lucy thoughtfully, "Mrs. Wilson was always very
fond of me. I cannot think why, though."
"No more can I," said Mr. Hardie, dryly; "she must be a thoroughly
unreasonable woman."
Mr. Hardie said this with a good deal of grace and humor, and a laugh
went round the table.
"I mean she only saw me at intervals of several years."
"Why, Lucy, what an antiquity you are making yourself," said Fountain.
But Lucy was occupied with her puzzle. "She calls me her nursling,"
said Lucy, _sotto voce,_ to her aunt, but, of course, quite
audibly to the rest of the company; "her dear nursling;" and says,
"she would walk fifty miles to see me. Nursling? hum! there is another
word I never heard, and I do not exactly know-- Then she says--"
_"Taisez-vous, petite sotte!"_ said Mrs.
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