There had been a long silence between them. It was broken by a question from Dashleigh.
“Did you know, Annabella, that Augustine Aumerle was soon going to leave the vicarage and return to Aspendale?”
“I know little of what goes on at the vicarage,” replied Annabella, after pausing to count stitches in her pattern; “I think that Ida must have cut me, she so seldom comes to the hall.”
“There are to be great doings at Aspendale,” resumed Dashleigh; “I saw Augustine this morning during my ride, and he told me of his novel arrangements. He expects soon a visit from Verdon, the well-known æronaut; I wonder that he keeps up acquaintance with one who may be regarded as a public exhibitor; but that is his business, not mine; it seems that they were school-fellows together, and it is not easy to break off old friendships.”
“If there be such a thing as a _lofty_ profession it is Mr. Verdon’s, without doubt,” said Annabella; “the aspirations of an æronaut must mount higher than even those of a peer!”
“It appears,” continued Dashleigh, without seeming to take notice of the observation, “that Mr. Verdon is to give his new grand balloon a trial trip from Augustine’s grounds.”
“Oh, how I should like to be there!” cried the countess.
“Augustine has invited us both,”—Annabella clapped her hands like a child,—“but the difficulty is that he will not be able himself to do the honours of his house, as he is to accompany Verdon in his upward flight.”
“Is he?” exclaimed the young countess; “that will be charming! Such a genius will mount up so high, that the silken ball will have no need of hydrogen gas! He will but inflate it with poetical ideas, and it will never stop short of the stars!”
The earl smiled at the idea. “I should be well pleased to see the ascent,” he observed; “but yet I am doubtful about accepting the invitation. It would, you see, be awkward for those in our position of life to be guests at the table of a man who was at the moment up in the clouds.”
Annabella burst into a girlish laugh. “You are afraid that he might look down even upon us,” she cried.
“Throw etiquette to the dogs!” exclaimed Annabella, heedless of her husband’s look of disgust at such an audacious parody on Shakspeare. “I must, will go to Aspendale! It will be such fun! I have half a mind to ascend in the balloon myself!”