Rudolph Musgrave,
upon proper solicitation, although such tittle-tattle is neither here
nor there; for at worst, a widowed, childless and impoverished
second-cousin, discreetly advanced in her forties, was entitled to keep
house for the colonel in his bereavement, as a jointly beneficial
arrangement, without provoking scandal's tongue to more than a jocose
innuendo or two when people met for "auction"--that new-fangled
perplexing variant of bridge, just introduced, wherein you bid on the
suits.... And, besides, Cousin Lucy Fentnor (as befitted any one born an
Allardyce) was to all accounts a notable housekeeper, famed alike for
the perilous glassiness of her hardwood floors, her dexterous management
of servants, her Honiton-braid fancy-work (familiar to every patron of
Lichfield charity bazaars), and her unparalleled calves-foot jelly.
Under Cousin Lucy Fentnor's systematized coddling little Roger grew like
the proverbial ill weed, and the colonel likewise waxed perceptibly in
girth.
Thus it was that accident and a woman's intervention seemed once more to
combine in shielding Rudolph Musgrave from discomfort.
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