She said the last sentence in such an ecstatic way that Odela looked at her in surprise.
“I am sure that Papa would not want me to be over-extravagant,” she replied.
There was a little pause before the Countess said,
“Your father will tell you about that himself.”
The way she spoke told Odela that there was something important that he had to tell her.
She wondered what it could possibly be.
*
That evening her father came back from the House of Lords obviously delighted to see her.
He held her close in his arms as he said,
“I have missed you, my dearest daughter!”
He looked at her searchingly and added, almost as if he was speaking to himself,
“You are so much like your mother. You are in fact almost identical to the way she looked when I married her.”
There was a note in his vo
