Kitabı oku: «The Trial; Or, More Links of the Daisy Chain», sayfa 21

The sisters heard the storm from the drawing-room, and Gertrude grew hotly indignant, and wanted Ethel to rush in to the rescue; but Ethel, though greatly moved, knew that female interposition only aggravated such matters, and restrained herself and her sister till she heard Tom stride off. Then creeping in on tiptoe, she found the boy sitting stunned and confounded by the novelty of the thing.

'What can it be all about, Ethel? I never had such a slanging in my life?'

'I don't think Tom is quite well. He had a bad headache last night.'

Then I hope—I mean, I think—he must have made it worse! I know mine aches, as if I had been next door to the great bell;' and he leant against his sister.

'I am afraid you really were inattentive.'

'No worse than since the heart has gone out of everything. But that was not all! Ethel, can it really be a disgrace, and desertion, and all that, if I don't go on with those volunteers, when it makes me sick to think of touching my rifle?' and his eyes filled with tears.

'It would be a great effort, I know,' said Ethel, smoothing his hair; 'but after all, you volunteered not for pleasure, but because your country wanted defence.'

'The country? I don't care for it, since it condemned him, when he was serving it.'

'He would not say that, Aubrey! He would only be vexed to hear that you gave in, and were fickle to your undertaking. Indeed, if I were the volunteer, I should think it due to him, not to shrink as if I were ashamed of what he was connected with.'

Aubrey tried to answer her sweet high-spirited smile, but he had been greatly hurt and distressed, and the late reproach to his manhood embittered his tears without making it easier to repress them; and pushing away his chair, he darted up-stairs.

'Poor dear fellow! I've been very hard on him, and only blamed instead of comforting,' thought Ethel sadly, as she slowly entered the passage, 'what shall I think of, to make a break for both of those two?'

'So you have been cockering your infant,' said Tom, meeting her. 'You mean to keep him a baby all his life.'

'Tom, I want to talk to you,' said she.

In expectation of her displeasure, he met it half way, setting his back against the passage wall, and dogmatically declaring, 'You'll be the ruin of him if you go on in this way! How is he ever to go through the world if you are to be always wiping his tears with an embroidered pocket-handkerchief, and cossetting him up like a blessed little sucking lamb?'

'Of course he must rough it,' said Ethel, setting her back against the opposite wall; 'I only want him to be hardened; but after a shock like this, one cannot go on as if one was a stock or stake. Even a machine would have its wheels out of order—'

'Well, well, but it is time that should be over.'

'So it is;' and as the sudden thought flashed on her, 'Tom, I want you to reconsider your journey, that you gave up in the spring, and take him—'

'I don't want to go anywhere,' he wearily said.

'Only it would be so good for him,' said Ethel earnestly; 'he really ought to see something taller than the Minster tower, and you are the only right person to take him, you are so kind to him.'

'For instance?' he said, smiling.

'Accidents will happen in the best regulated families; besides, he did want shaking up. I dare say he will be the better for it. There's the dinner-bell.'

To her surprise, she found his arm round her waist, and a kiss on her brow. 'I thought I should have caught it,' he said; 'you are not half a fool of a sister after all.'

Aubrey was not in the dining-room; and after having carved, Tom, in some compunction, was going to look for him, when he made his appearance in his uniform.

'Oho!' said the Doctor, surprised.

'There's to be a grand parade with the Whitford division,' he answered; and no more was said.

Not till the eight o'clock twilight of the dripping August evening did the family reassemble. Ethel had been preparing for a journey that Mary and Gertrude were to make to Maplewood; and she did not come down till her father had returned, when following him into the drawing-room, she heard his exclamation, 'Winter again!'

For the fire was burning, Tom was sitting crumpled over it, with his feet on the fender, and his elbows on his knees, and Aubrey in his father's arm-chair, his feet over the side, so fast asleep that neither entrance nor exclamation roused him; the room was pervaded with an odour of nutmeg and port wine, and a kettle, a decanter, and empty tumblers told tales. Now the Doctor was a hardy and abstemious man, of a water-drinking generation; and his wife's influence had further tended to make him—indulgent as he was—scornful of whatever savoured of effeminacy or dissipation, so his look and tone were sharp, and disregardful of Aubrey's slumbers.

'We got wet through,' said Tom; 'he was done up, had a shivering fit, and I tried to prevent mischief.'

'Hm! said the Doctor, not mollified. 'Cold is always the excuse. But another time don't teach your brother to make this place like a fast man's rooms.'

Ethel was amazed at Tom's bearing this so well. With the slightest possible wrinkle of the skin of his forehead, he took up the decanter and carried it off to the cellaret.

'How that boy sleeps!' said his father, looking at him.

'He has had such bad nights!' said Ethel. 'Don't be hard on Tom, he is very good about such things, and would not have done it without need. He is so careful of Aubrey!'

'Too careful by half,' said the Doctor, smiling placably as his son returned. 'You are all in a league to spoil that youngster. He would be better if you would not try your hand on his ailments, but would knock him about.'

'I never do that without repenting it,' said Tom; then, after a pause, 'It is not spirit that is wanting, but you would have been frightened yourself at his state of exhaustion.'

'Of collapse, don't you mean?' said the Doctor, with a little lurking smile. 'However, it is vexatious enough; he had been gaining ground all the year, and now he is regularly beaten down again.'

'Suppose I was to take him for a run on the Continent?'

'What, tired of the hospital?'

'A run now and then is duty, not pleasure,' replied Tom, quietly; while Ethel burnt to avert from him these consequences of his peculiar preference for appearing selfish.

'So much for railway days! That will be a new doctrine at Stoneborough. Well, where do you want to go?'

'I don't want to go anywhere.'

Ethel would not have wondered to see him more sullen than he looked at that moment. It was lamentable that those two never could understand each other, and that either from Tom's childish faults, his resemblance to his grandfather, or his habitual reserve, Dr. May was never free from a certain suspicion of ulterior motives on his part. She was relieved at the influx of the rest of the party, including Richard; and Aubrey wakening, was hailed with congratulations on the soundness of his sleep, whilst she looked at Tom with a meaning smile as she saw her father quietly feel the boy's hand and brow. The whole family were always nursing the lad, and scolding one another for it.

Tom had put himself beside Ethel, under the shade of her urn, and she perceived that he was ill at ease, probably uncertain whether any confidences had been bestowed on her or Mary from the other side. There was no hope that the topic would be avoided, for Richard began with inquiries for Averil.

'She is working herself to death,' said Mary, sadly; 'but she says it suits her.'

'And it does,' said the Doctor; 'she is stronger every day. There is nothing really the matter with her.'

'Contrary blasts keep a ship upright,' said Gertrude, 'and she has them in abundance. We found her in the midst of six people, all giving diametrically opposite advice.'

'Dr. Spencer was really helping, and Mr. Wright was there about his own affairs,' said Ethel, in a tone of repression.

'And Mrs. Ledwich wanted her to settle on the Ohio to assist the runaway slaves,' continued Gertrude.

'It does not tease her as if she heard it,' said Mary.

'No,' said the Doctor, 'she moves about like one in a dream, and has no instinct but to obey her brother.'

'Well, I am glad to be going,' said Daisy; 'it will be flat when all the excitement is over, and we have not the fun of seeing Tom getting rises out of Ave Ward.'

This time Tom could not repress a sudden jerk, and Ethel silenced her sister by a hint that such references were not nice when people were in trouble.

'By the bye,' said Aubrey, 'speaking of going away, what were you saying while I was asleep? or was it a dream that I was looking through Tom's microscope at a rifle bullet in the Tyrol?'

'An inspiration from Tom's brew,' said the Doctor.

'Weren't you saying anything?' said Aubrey, eagerly. 'I'm sure there was something about duty and pleasure. Were you really talking of it?'

'Tom was, and if it is to put some substance into those long useless legs, I don't care if you do start off.'

Aubrey flashed into a fresh being. He had just been reading a book about the Tyrol, and Tom not caring at all where they were to go, this gave the direction. Aubrey rushed to borrow a continental Bradshaw from Dr. Spencer, and the plan rapidly took form; with eager suggestions thrown in by every one, ending with the determination to start on the next Monday morning.

'That's settled,' said Tom, wearily, when he and Ethel, as often happened, had lingered behind the rest; 'only, Ethel, there's one thing. You must keep your eye on the Vintry Mill, and fire off a letter to me if the fellow shows any disposition to bolt.'

'If I can possibly find out—'

'Keep your eyes open; and then Hazlitt has promised to let me know if that cheque of Bilson's is cashed. If I am away, telegraph, and meantime set my father on the scent. It may not hang that dog himself, but it may save Leonard.'

'Oh, if it would come!'

'And meantime—silence, you know—'

'Very well;' then lingering, 'Tom, I am sure you did the right thing by Aubrey, and so was papa afterwards.'

His brow darkened for a moment, but shaking it off he said, 'I'll do my best for your cosset lamb, and bring him back in condition.'

'Thank you; I had rather trust him with you than any one.'

'And how is it that no one proposes a lark for you, old Ethel?' said Tom, holding her so as to study her face. 'You look awfully elderly and ragged.'

'Oh, I'm going to be left alone with the Doctor, and that will be the greatest holiday I ever had.'

'I suppose it is to you,' said Tom, with a deep heavy sigh, perhaps glad to have some ostensible cause for sighing.

'Dear Tom, when you are living here, and working with him—'

'Ah—h!' he said almost with disgust, 'don't talk of slavery to me before my time. How I hate it, and everything else! Good night!'

'Poor Tom!' thought Ethel. 'I wish papa knew him better and would not goad him. Will Averil ever wake to see what she has done, and feel for him? Though I don't know why I should wish two people to be unhappy instead of one, and there is weight enough already. O, Leonard, I wonder if your one bitter affliction will shield you from the others that may be as trying, and more tempting!'

CHAPTER XVIII

 
All bright hopes and hues of day
Have faded into twilight gray.—Christian Year
 

'No fear of Aubrey's failing,' said Tom; 'he has a better foundation than nine-tenths of the lads that go up, and he is working like a man.'

'He always did work heartily,' said Ethel, 'and with pleasure in his work.'

'Ay, like a woman.'

'Like a scholar.'

'A scholar is a kind of woman. A man, when he's a boy, only works because he can't help it, and afterwards for what he can get by it.'

'For what he can do with it would have a worthier sound.'

'Sound or sense, it is all the same.'

'Scaffolding granted, what is the building?'

Tom apparently thought it would be working like a woman to give himself the trouble of answering; and Ethel went on in her own mind, 'For the work's own sake—for what can be got by it—for what can be done with it—because it can't be helped—are—these all the springs of labour here? Then how is work done in that solitary cell? Is it because it can't be helped, or is it 'as the Lord's freeman'? And when he can hear of Aubrey's change, will he take it as out of his love, or grieve for having been the cause?'

For the change had been working in Aubrey ever since Leonard had altered his career. The boy was at a sentimental age, and had the susceptibility inseparable from home breeding; his desire to become a clergyman had been closely connected with the bright visions of the happy days at Coombe, and had begun to wane with the first thwarting of Leonard's plans; and when the terrible catastrophe of the one friend's life occurred, the other became alienated from all that they had hoped to share together. Nor could even Dr. May's household be so wholly exempt from the spirit of the age, that Aubrey was not aware of the strivings and trials of faith at the University. He saw what Harvey Anderson was, and knew what was passing in the world; and while free from all doubts, shrank boyishly from the investigations that he fancied might excite them. Or perhaps these fears of possible scruples were merely his self-justification for gratifying his reluctance.

At any rate, he came home from his two months' tour, brown, robust, with revived spirits, but bent on standing an examination for the academy at Woolwich. He had written about it several times before his return, and his letters were, as his father said, 'so appallingly sensible that perhaps he would change his mind.' But it was not changed when he came home; and Ethel, though sorely disappointed, was convinced by her own sense as well as by Richard's prudence, that interference was dangerous. No one in Israel was to go forth to the wars of the Lord save those who 'willingly offered themselves;' and though grieved that her own young knight should be one of the many champions unwilling to come forth in the Church's cause, she remembered the ordeal to Norman's faith, and felt that the exertion of her influence was too great a responsibility.

'You don't like this,' said Tom, after a pause. 'It is not my doing, you know.'

'No, I did not suppose it was,' said Ethel. 'You would not withhold any one in these days of exceeding want of able clergymen.'

'I told him it would be a grief at home,' added Tom, 'but when a lad gets into that desperate mood, he always may be a worse grief if you thwart him; and I give you credit, Ethel, you have not pulled the curb.'

'Richard told me not.'

'Richard represents the common sense of the family when I am not at home.'

Tom was going the next day to his course of study at the London hospitals, and this—the late afternoon—was the first time that he and his sister had been alone together. He had been for some little time having these short jerks of conversation, beginning and breaking off rather absently. At last he said, 'Do those people ever write?'

'Prisoners, do you mean? Not for three months.'

'No—exiles.'

'Mary has heard twice.'

He held out Mary's little leathern writing-case to her.

'O, Tom!'

'It is only Mary.'

Ethel accepted the plea, aware that there could be no treason between herself and Mary, and moreover that the letters had been read by all the family. She turned the key, looked them out, and standing by the window to catch the light, began to read—

'You need not be afraid, kind Mary,' wrote Averil, on the first days of her voyage; 'I am quite well, as well as a thing can be whose heart is dried up. I am hardened past all feeling, and seem to be made of India-rubber. Even my colour has returned—how I hate to see it, and to hear people say my roses will surprise the delicate Americans. Fancy, in a shop in London I met an old school-fellow, who was delighted to see me, talked like old times, and insisted on knowing where we were staying. I used to be very fond of her, but it was as if I had been dead and was afraid she would find out I was a ghost, yet I talked quite indifferently, and never faltered in my excuses. When we embarked, it was no use to know it was the last of England, where he and you and home and life were left. How I envied the poor girl, who was crying as if her heart would break!'

On those very words, broke the announcement of Mr. Cheviot. Tom coolly held out his hand for the letters, so much as a matter of course, that Ethel complied with his gesture, and he composedly pocketed them, while she felt desperately guilty. Mary's own entrance would have excited no compunction, Ethel would have said that Tom wanted to hear of the voyage; but in the present case, she could only blush, conscious that the guest recognized her sister's property, and was wondering what business she had with it, and she was unwilling to explain, not only on Tom's account, but because she knew that Mr. Cheviot greatly disapproved of petitioning against the remission of capital sentences, and thought her father under a delusion.

After Tom's departure the next day, she found the letters in her work-basket, and restored them to Mary, laughing over Mr. Cheviot's evident resentment at the detection of her doings.

'I think it looked rather funny,' said Mary.

'I beg your pardon,' said Ethel, much astonished; 'but I thought, as every one else had seen them—'

'Tom always laughed at poor Ave.'

'He is very different now; but indeed, Mary, I am sorry, since you did not like it.'

'Oh!' cried Mary, discomfited by Ethel's apology, 'indeed I did not mean that, I wish I had not said anything. You know you are welcome to do what you please with all I have. Only,' she recurred, 'you can't wonder that Mr. Cheviot thought it funny.'

'If he had any call to think at all,' said Ethel, who was one of those who thought that Charles Cheviot had put a liberal interpretation on Dr. May's welcome to Stoneborough. He had arrived after the summer holidays as second master of the school, and at Christmas was to succeed Dr. Hoxton, who had been absolutely frightened from his chair by the commissions of inquiry that had beset the Whichcote foundation; and in compensation was at present perched on the highest niche sacred to conservative martyrdom in Dr. May's loyal heart.

Charles Cheviot was a very superior man, who had great influence with young boys, and was admirably fitted to bring about the much required reformation in the school. He came frequently to discuss his intentions with Dr. May, and his conversation was well worth being listened to; but even the Doctor found three evenings in a week a large allowance for good sense and good behaviour—the evenings treated as inviolable even by old friends like Dr. Spencer and Mr. Wilmot, the fast waning evenings of Aubrey's home life.

The rest were reduced to silence, chess, books, and mischief, except when a treat of facetious small talk was got up for their benefit. Any attempt of the ladies to join in the conversation was replied to with a condescending levity that reduced Ethel to her girlhood's awkward sense of forwardness and presumption; Mary was less disconcerted, because her remarks were never so aspiring, and Harry's wristbands sufficed her; but the never-daunted Daisy rebelled openly, related the day's events to her papa, fearless of any presence, and when she had grown tired of the guest's regular formula of expecting to meet Richard, she told him that the adult school always kept Richard away in the winter evenings; 'But if you want to see him, he is always to be found at Cocksmoor, and he would be very glad of help.'

'Did he express any such wish?' said Mr. Cheviot, looking rather puzzled.

'Oh dear, no; only I thought you had so much time on your hands.'

'Oh no—oh no!' exclaimed Mary, in great confusion, 'Gertrude did not mean—I am sure I don't know what she was thinking of.'

And at the first opportunity, Mary, for once in her life, administered to Gertrude a richly-deserved reproof for sauciness and contempt of improving conversation; but the consequence was a fancy of the idle younglings to make Mary accountable for the 'infesting of their evenings,' and as she was always ready to afford sport to the household, they thus obtained a happy outlet for their drollery and discontent, and the imputation was the more comical from his apparent indifference and her serene composure; until one evening when, as the bell rung, and mutterings passed between Aubrey and Gertrude, of 'Day set,' and 'Cheviot's mountains lone,' the head of the family, for the first time, showed cognizance of the joke, and wearily taking down his slippered feet from their repose, said, 'Lone! yes, there's the rub! I shall have to fix days of reception if Mary will insist on being so attractive.'

Mary, with an instinct that she was blamed, began to be very sorry, but broke off amid peals of merriment, and blushes that were less easily extinguished; and which caused Ethel to tell each of the young ones privately, that their sport was becoming boy and frog work, and she would have no more of it. The Daisy was inclined to be restive; but Ethel told her that many people thought this kind of fun could never be safe or delicate. 'I have always said that it might be quite harmless, if people knew where to stop—now show me that I am right.'

And to Aubrey she put the question, whether he would like to encourage Daisy in being a nineteenth-century young lady without reticence?

However, as Mary heard no more of their mischievous wit, Ethel was quite willing to let them impute to herself a delusion that the schoolmaster was smitten with Mary, and to laugh with them in private over all the ridiculous things they chose to say.

At last Flora insisted on Ethel's coming with her to make a distant call, and, as soon as they were in the carriage, said, 'It was not only for the sake of Mrs. Copeland, though it is highly necessary you should go, but it is the only way of ever speaking to you, and I want to know what all this is about Mary?'

'The children have not been talking their nonsense to you!'

'No one ever talks nonsense to me—intentionally, I mean—not even you, Ethel; I wish you did. But I hear it is all over the town. George has been congratulated, and so have I, and one does not like contradicting only to eat it up again.'

'You always did hear everything before it was true, Flora.'

'Then is it going to be true?'

'O, Flora, can it be possible?' said Ethel, with a startled, astonished look.

'Possible! Highly obvious and proper, as it seems to me. The only doubt in my mind was whether it were not too obvious to happen.'

'He is always coming in,' said Ethel, 'but I never thought it was really for that mischief! The children only laugh about it as the most preposterous thing they can think of, for he never speaks to a woman if he can help it.'

'That may not prevent him from wanting a good wife.'

'Wanting a wife—ay, as he would want a housekeeper, just because he has got to the proper position for it; but is he to go and get our bonny Mary in that way, just for an appendage to the mastership?'

'Well done, old Ethel! I'm glad to see you so like yourself. I remember when we thought Mrs. Hoxton's position very sublime.'

'I never thought of positions!'

'Never! I know that very well; and I am not thinking of it now, except as an adjunct to a very worthy man, whom Mary will admire to the depths of her honest heart, and who will make her very happy.'

'Yes, I suppose if she once begins to like him, that he will,' said Ethel, slowly; 'but I can't bring myself to swallow it yet. She has never given in to his being a bore, but I thought that was her universal benevolence; and he says less to her than to any one.'

'Depend upon it, he thinks he is proceeding selon les regles.'

'Then he ought to be flogged! Has he any business to think of my Mary, without falling red-hot in love with her? Why, Hector was regularly crazy that last half-year; and dear old Polly is worth ever so much more than Blanche.'

'I must say you have fulfilled my desire of hearing you talk nonsense, Ethel. Mary would never think of those transports.'

'She deserves them all the more.'

'Well, she is the party most concerned, though she will be a cruel loss to all of us.'

'She will not go far, if—'

'Yes, but she will be the worse loss. You simple Ethel, you don't think that Charles Cheviot will let her be the dear family fag we have always made of her?'

'Oh no—that always was wrong.'

'And living close by, she will not come on a visit, all festal, to resume home habits. No, you must make up your mind, Ethel—if, as you say, if—he will be a man for monopolies, and he will resent anything that he thinks management from you. I suspect it is a real sign of the love that you deny, that he has ventured on the sister of a clever woman, living close by, and a good deal looked up to.'

'Flora, Flora, you should not make one wicked. If she is to be happy, why can't you let me rejoice freely, and only have her drawn off from me bit by bit, in the right way of nature?'

'I did not tell you to make you dislike it—of course not. Only I thought that a little tact, a little dexterity, might prevent Charles Cheviot from being so much afraid of you, as if he saw at once how really the head of the family you are.'

'Nonsense, Flora, I am no such thing. If I am domineering, the sooner any one sees it and takes me down the better. If this does come, I will try to behave as I ought, and not to mind so Mary is happy; but I can't act, except just as the moment leads me. I hope it will soon be over, now you have made me begin to believe in it. I am afraid it will spoil Harry's pleasure at home! Poor dear Harry, what will he do?'

'When does he come?'

'Any day now; he could not quite tell when he could get away.

When they came back, and Dr. May ran out to say, 'Can you come in. Flora? we want you,' the sisters doubted whether his excitement were due to the crisis, or to the arrival. He hurried them into the study, and shut the door, exulting and perplexed. 'You girls leave one no rest,' he said. 'Here I have had this young Cheviot telling me that the object of his attentions has been apparent. I'm sure I did not know if it were Mab or one of you. I thought he avoided all alike; and poor Mary was so taken by surprise that she will do nothing but cry, and say, "No, never;" and when I tell her she shall do as she pleases, she cries the more; or if I ask her if I am to say Yes, she goes into ecstasies of crying! I wish one of you would go up, and see if you can do anything with her.'

'Is he about the house?' asked Flora, preparing to obey.

'No—I was obliged to tell him that she must have time, and he is gone home. I am glad he should have a little suspense—he seemed to make so certain of her. Did he think he was making love all the time he was boring me with his gas in the dormitories? I hope she will serve him out!'

'He will not be the worse for not being a lady's man,' said Flora, at the door.

But in ten minutes, Flora returned with the same report of nothing but tears; and she was obliged to leave the party to their perplexity, and drive home; while Ethel went in her turn to use all manner of pleas to her sister to cheer up, know her own mind, and be sure that they only wished to guess what would make her happiest. To console or to scold were equally unsuccessful, and after attempting all varieties of treatment, bracing or tender, Ethel found that the only approach to calm was produced by the promise that she should be teased no more that evening, but be left quite alone to recover, and cool her burning eyes and aching head. So, lighting her fire, shaking up a much-neglected easy-chair, bathing her eves, desiring her not to come down to tea, and engaging both that Gertrude should not behold her, and that papa would not be angry, provided that she tried to know what she really wished, and be wiser on the morrow, Ethel left her. The present concern was absolutely more to persuade her to give an answer of some sort, than what that answer should be. Ethel would not wish; Dr. May had very little doubt; and Gertrude, from whom there was no concealing the state of affairs, observed, 'If she cries so much the first time she has to know her own mind, it shows she can't do without some one to do it for her.'

The evening passed in expeditions of Ethel's to look after her patient, and in desultory talk on all that was probable and improbable between Dr. May and the younger ones, until just as Ethel was coming down at nine o'clock with the report that she had persuaded Mary to go to bed, she was startled by the street door being opened as far as the chain would allow, and a voice calling, 'I say, is any one there to let me in?'

'Harry! O, Harry! I'm coming;' and she had scarcely had time to shut the door previous to taking down the chain, before the three others were in the hall, the tumult of greetings breaking forth.

'But where's Polly?' he asked, as soon as he was free to look round them all.

'Going to bed with a bad headache,' was the answer, with which Daisy had sense enough not to interfere; and the sailor had been brought into the drawing-room, examined on his journey, and offered supper, before he returned to the charge.

'Nothing really the matter with Mary, I hope?'

'Oh! no—nothing.'

'Can't I go up and see her?'

'Not just at present,' said Ethel. 'I will see how she is when she is in bed, but if she is going to sleep, we had better not disturb her.'

'Harry thinks she must sleep better for the sight of him,' said the Doctor; 'but it is a melancholy business.—Harry, your nose is out of joint.'

'Who is it?' said Harry, gravely.

'Ah! you have chosen a bad time to come home. We shall know no comfort till it is over.'

'Who?' cried Harry; 'no nonsense, Gertrude, I can't stand guessing.'

This was directed to Gertrude, who was only offending by pursed lips and twinkling eyes, because he could not fall foul of his father. Dr. May took pity, and answered at once.

'Cheviot!' cried Harry. 'Excellent! He always did know how to get the best of everything. Polly turning into a Mrs. Hoxton. Ha! ha! Well, that is a relief to my mind.'