CHAPTER XV.
THE GENERAL HAS AN IDEA When Sir Denis came home from his club that evening he learned that Miss Nelly had gone to bed with a headache.
Pat, who told him, looked away as he gave the information, as though he did not believe in his own words.

Miss Nelly with a headache! Why, God bless her, she had never had such a thing, not from the day she was born! To be sure, the whole affectionate household knew that there was some cloud over Miss Nelly.

They didn't talk much about it.

Pat and Bridget knew better than to have the servants' hall gossiping over the master and Miss Nelly.

A new under-housemaid, who was greatly addicted to the reading of penny novelettes, suggested that Miss Nelly was being forced into marrying her cousin by the machinations of his mother, who was not _persona grata_ with the servants' hall.