I declare: oh, I shall be ill! Lucy,"
she seized the girl's hand and dragged her towards the cottage,
"come in and give me red lavender. I shall be in bed for days
and days and days. Oh, what brutes men can be! But listen, you
two horrors," she indicated Braddock and Hope, as she pushed open
the door, "if you dare to say a word against me, I'll have an
action for libel against you. Oh, dear me, how very ill I feel!
Lucy, darling, help me, oh, help me, and--and--oh--oh--oh!"
She flopped down on the threshold of her home with a cry.
"Archie! Archie! She's fainted."
Hope rushed forward, and raised the stout little woman in his
arms. Jane, attracted by the clamor, appeared on the scene, and
between the three of them they managed to get Mrs. Jasher placed
on the sofa of the pink drawing-room. She certainly was in a
dead faint, so Hope left her to the administrations of Lucy and
the servant, and walked out again into the garden, closing the
cottage door after him.
He found the heartless Professor quite oblivious to Mrs. Jasher's
sufferings, so taken up was he with the newly found mummy.
Cockatoo had been sent for a hand-cart, and while he was absent
Braddock expatiated on the perfections of this relic of Peruvian
civilization.
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