Page:Ethel Churchill 2.pdf/297

Rh At this moment Lord Marchmont entered the room in a very bad humour; for one of the servants, sent by Lady Marchmont to seek him, had, by giving his message aloud, that Lady Marchmont requested him to come home immediately, as she wanted to speak to him on a matter of the utmost consequence, placed him under the decent and disagreeable necessity of returning at once, before a bet was decided, whether his own cook, or that of Lord Montagle's, would prepare a single dish to the greatest perfection. The jury of taste had been impanelled, and here was he summoned away ten minutes before the dishes came up. It was a trying circumstance, if not to his philosophy, to his temper. "What is the matter?" asked he, on entering the drawing-room, and finding Henrietta sobbing; "what can induce you to disfigure yourself so by crying?" "My uncle is ill, very ill!" exclaimed Henrietta, speaking, however, more from the fears of her excited fancy than from the actual contents of the letter.