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 CHAPTER XXIII

IN WHICH GRANDMAMMA RENEWS HERS

When Philip and Mary returned to the King's Parade with their inmost thoughts centered upon a dish of tea, a great surprise awaited them. The sitting-room overlooking the sea was in the occupation of no less a person than His Britannic Majesty's Ex-Ambassador to Persia. He had come, it appeared, to thank Grandmamma personally for the loan of her apparatus, and to commemorate the amount of good it had already done the complaint from which they suffered in common.

It happened that Grandmamma, like other old ladies who have moved in the world, could talk to a lord as well as most people if she happened to be in the humor. Well, she had had a pretty good nap; the cap-with-the-Siddons'-lace was as straight as you please; and she had a distinct recollection of having met the Ex-Ambassador at Knebworth somewhere about the year 1881.

Long before Philip, accompanied by Mary, returned in his unconventional footballing costume, these two interesting persons were getting on like a house on fire.