CHAPTER V.

No answer to that telegram; no arriving daughter. Yet nobody showed any
uneasiness or seemed surprised; that is, nobody but Washington. After
three days of waiting, he asked Lady Rossmore what she supposed the
trouble was. She answered, tranquilly:

"Oh, it's some notion of hers, you never can tell. She's a Sellers, all
through--at least in some of her ways; and a Sellers can't tell you
beforehand what he's going to do, because he don't know himself till he's
done it. She's all right; no occasion to worry about her. When she's
ready she'll come or she'll write, and you can't tell which, till it's
happened."

It turned out to be a letter. It was handed in at that moment, and was
received by the mother without trembling hands or feverish eagerness,
or any other of the manifestations common in the case of long delayed
answers to imperative telegrams. She polished her glasses with
tranquility and thoroughness, pleasantly gossiping along, the while,
then opened the letter and began to read aloud:

KENILWORTH KEEP, REDGAUNTLET HALL,
ROWENA-IVANHOE COLLEGE, THURSDAY.

DEAR PRECIOUS MAMMA ROSSMORE:

Oh, the joy of it!--you can't think. They had always turned up
their noses at our pretentions, you know; and I had fought back as