“The meaning of what?” Margaret asked, without excitement. She had no newspaper, being quite content to wait for the news until the gentlemen had read everything and contemptuously flung down each his journal with the remark that there was nothing in it. Mrs. Gerald Piercey did not imagine there could ever be anything in the paper which could concern her or her belongings; and it was a quiet time in politics, when Parliament was up, and nothing very stirring to be expected. She rose to put down by her father-in-law’s side his cup of tea; for though he was so fiery an old gentleman, he loved the little feminine attentions of which he had been for many years deprived.
“Let me see, Grandpapa,” said Osy, coming to the front with the air of a man who could put all straight.
“By Jove!” cried Colonel Piercey, who had come to the same startling announcement in his paper. And the father and son for a moment sat bolt upright, staring at each other as if each supposed the other to be to blame.
“What is it?” said Margaret, beginning to be alarmed.
She was answered by the sudden opening of the door, and the entrance, announced by a servant quite unacquainted with him, who conferred upon him an incomprehensible name, of Mr. Pownceby, pale with excitement and tired with a journey. He scarcely took time for the ceremonious salutations which Sir Francis Piercey thought needful, and omitted altogether the “how-d’ye-do’s” owing to his old friends, Margaret and Gerald, but burst at once into the subject that possessed him. “Well, I can see you’ve seen it! Sharp work putting it in so soon; but it’s all true.”
“What is all true? We have something to do with its being false or true, I suppose?” cried Colonel Piercey, placing himself in a somewhat defiant attitude, in an Englishman’s usual position of defence before the fire.
“What are you saying, sir? what are you saying? I am a little hard of hearing. I desire that all this should be explained to me immediately. You seem all to understand, but not a syllable has reached my ears.”
“I assure you, Sir Francis,” said Mr. Pownceby, “I started the first thing this morning. I have not let the grass grow under my feet. Her solicitors communicated with me only yesterday. It is sharp work getting it into the papers at once, very sharp work, but I suppose she wanted to get the honour and glory; and it is quite true. I have the deed in my pocket in full form; for those solicitors of hers, if not endowed with just the best fame in the profession, are----”