CHAPTER XL.ALCIDES.
There was quite a battle-royal on the sea-shore after that: Dulce and Phillis pelted Laddie with bonbons; while their mother enjoyed her nap in the snug parlor. And Dorothy, pleased, bewildered, and half frightened at what the mistress might say, stowed away game and fruit and confectionery in the tiny larder, and then turned her attention to such a tea as her young ladies had not seen since the Glen Cottage days.
Laddie raced and barked, and nearly made himself ill with the sweet things; and Nan laughed, and then grew serious as she remembered an afternoon in the Longmead Meadows, when Dick, in wild spirits, had pelted her and Phillis with roses until their laps were full of the delicious, fragrant leaves. “‘Sweets to the sweet,’—so look out for yourself, Nan!” he had said, in his half-rough, boyish way. But that was in the days when both were very young and Dick had not learned to make love.
Mattie joined in the game a little awkwardly,—it was so long since the poor little woman had played at anything. Her younger sisters never chose Mattie in their games. “She makes such mistakes, and puts us out; and that spoils the fun,” they said; and so Grace was their favorite playfellow.
For it is perfectly true that some grown-up people have forgotten how to play, while others are such children at heart that they can abandon themselves most joyously and gracefully to any game, however romping; but Mattie, who was sobered by frequent snubbing, was not one of these. She loved fun still, in her way, but not as Phillis and Dulce, who thought it the293cream of life and would not be content with the sort of skimmed-milk existence of other young ladies.
Sir Harry watched them admiringly, and his enthusiasm grew every moment.
“I say, you are the right sort, and no mistake. I never met jollier girls in my life. A fellow would not know which to choose: would he, Miss Mattie?”
Mattie took this seriously.
“Nan is chosen:—are you not, Nan?” she said, in her downright fashion. And then, as Sir Harry stared at this, and Nan blushed and looked even prettier, Phillis first scolded Mattie soundly for her bluntness, and then took upon herself to describe Dick’s perfections:
“The dearest fellow in the world, Harry, when you come to know him; but not handsome, and dreadfully young looking, some people think. But, as Nan will not look at any one else, we must make the best of him.”
“And when are they to be married?” asked her cousin, curiously. He was not quite pleased with this discovery.
“When?—Oh, Harry, there is an ‘if’ in the case,” returned Phillis, solemnly. “The dearest fellow in the world has an ogre of a father,—a man so benighted, so narrow in his prejudices, that he thinks it decidedlyinfra dig.for his intended daughter in-law to sew other people’s gowns. I do love that expression. Harry: it is so forcible. So he forbids the banns.”
“No, really!—Is she serious, Nan?” But Nan grew shy all at once, and would not answer.
“I am serious, Sir Henry Challoner,” replied Phillis, pompously. “The path of true love is impeded. Poor Dick is pining in his rooms at Oxford; and Nan—well, I am afraid her looks belie her; only you know appearances are sometimes deceitful.” And indeed Nan’s pink cheeks and air of placid contentment scarcely bore out her sister’s words.
The newly found cousin sat in silent perplexity staring at them both. Love-affairs were not much in his way; and until now he had never been thrown much with his equals in the other sex. His rough colonial life, full of excitement and money-getting, had engrossed his youth. He was now a man of thirty; but in disposition, in simplicity, and in a certain guilelessness of speech, he seemed hardly more than an overgrown boy.
“Well, now, is it not like a book?” he said, at last, breaking the silence quite abruptly. “It must be an awful bother for you, Nan; but we must put a stop to all that. I am the head of the family; and I shall have a word to say to that Mr.—what is his name?”
“Mr. Mayne,” returned Nan, softly.
It was at this moment that the name of Hercules came into Phillis’s head for her cousin. What feats of strength did he mean to undertake on their behalf? Would he strangle the hydra-headed monster of public opinion that pronounced294“women who sewed other women’s gowns” were not to be received into society? Would he help Nan gather the golden apples of satisfied love and ambition? What was it that he meant to do by dint of sheer force and good nature?
Harry Challoner did not long leave them in ignorance of his intentions. In the coolest possible way he at once assumed the headship of the family,—adopting them at once, and giving them the benefit of his opinions on every point that could possibly be mooted.
“I had not a soul belonging to me until now,” he said, looking around on his cousins’ bright faces with a glow of honest satisfaction on his own. “It made a fellow feel precious lonely out there, I can tell you.”
“You ought to have married, Harry,” suggested Dulce.
“I never thought any one would care for such a great hulking fellow,” he returned, simply; “and then the girls over there were not to my taste. Besides, I never thought of it; I was too busy. I am going to take a holiday now, and look about me a little; and when you and Aunt Catherine are settled, I may have a try myself at some one,” he finished, with a big laugh.
This notion amused the girls immensely, then and afterwards. They began to talk of the future Lady Challoner. Nan proposed one of the Paines. Phillis thought if Grace Drummond were only as sweet-looking as her photograph he could hardly help falling in love with her. And Dulce was of opinion that Adelaide Sartoris, handsome and queenly as she was, would not consider a baronet beneath her. They confided all these thoughts to Sir Harry, who thanked them quite gravely for their interest and promised to consider the matter. He even wrote down the names in his pocket-book one after another.
“Adelaide Sartoris, did you say? Ah, we had an Adelaide at Sydney, a little, dark thing, with hair blown all over her temples, and such a pair of mischievous eyes: that girl was always laughing at me, somehow. And yet she seemed sorry to bid me good-bye.”
“Perhaps she was in love with you?” observed Dulce. But Phillis frowned at this. She thought they had gone too far in their jokes already with a cousin who was such a complete stranger. But he returned, quite gravely,—
“Well, now, you know, such a thing never came into my head. I talked to her because a fellow likes to be amused by a lively girl like Miss Addie. But as to thinking seriously of her—well, I could not stand that, you know to be laughed at all one’s life; eh, Miss Mattie?” And Mattie, at this appeal, looked up with round, innocent eyes, and said, “Certainly not,” in such an impressive tone that the other girls burst out laughing.
They all went home after that. Sir Harry escorted his cousins and Mattie to the Friary, and then returned to his hotel to dinner. But the girls, who were in a merry mood, would not part295with Mattie. They sent her home to put on her green silk dress, with strict orders that she was to return as soon as possible.
“We are all going to make ourselves pretty,” announced Phillis. “A cousin does not turn up every day; and when he promises to be a good fellow, like Harry, we cannot do him too much honor.”
“Ah, I should like to come,” returned Mattie. “I have had such a nice day; and, if Archie will not mind––” And then she bustled into the vicarage, and into her brother’s study.
Archie roused himself a little wearily from his abstraction to listen to his sister’s story; but at the end of it he said good-naturedly, for he had taught himself to be tolerant of Mattie’s little gaucheries,—
“And the long and short of it is that you want to be gadding again. Well, run and get ready, or you will keep their tea waiting; and do put on your collar straight, Mattie.” But this slight thrust was lost on Mattie as she delightedly withdrew. Archie sighed as he tried to compose himself to his reading. He had not been asked to join Mattie. For the last few weeks he had become a stranger to the cottage. Did they notice his absence? he wondered. Did they miss the visits that had once been so frequent? By and by he would resume his old habits of intimacy, and go among them as he had done; but just now the effort was too painful. He dreaded the unspoken sympathy in Phillis’s eyes. He dreaded anything like an understanding between them. Nan’s perfect unconsciousness was helpful to him; but there was something in Phillis’s manner that stirred up an old pain. For the present he was safer and happier alone in his study, though Mattie did not think so, and told her friends that Archie looked terribly dull.
Mrs. Challoner proposed sending for him; but Phillis, greatly to her mother’s surprise, negatived the proposition:
“Oh, no, mother; pray do not! Mattie, you must excuse me. I do not mean to be rude, but we should all have to be so dreadfully well-behaved if Mr. Drummond came, and I just feel myself in a ‘nonsense mood,’ as Dulce used to say when she was a baby.” And then they all forgot Archie, and fell to discussing the new cousin.
“He is dreadfully ugly, mammie, is he not?” observed Dulce, who had a horror of red hair. But Mrs. Challoner demurred:
“Well, no, pet; I cannot agree with you. He is very plain, but so is Dick; but it struck me they were both rather alike.” An indignant “How can you, mother!” from Nan. “Well, my dear,” she continued, placidly, “I do not mean really alike, for they have not a feature in common; but they have both got the same honest, open look, only Dick’s face is more intelligent.” But this hardly appeased Nan, who was heard to296say under her breath “that she thought Dick had the nicest face in the world.”
“And Sir Harry has a nice face too: has he not, Mrs. Challoner?” exclaimed Mattie, who never could be silent in a discussion. “It takes time to get used to such very red hair; and, of course, he is dreadfully big,—almost too big, I should say. But when he talks he has such a good-natured way with him; now, hasn’t he?” appealing to Nan, who looked just a little glum,—that is, glum for Nan, for she could not do the sulks properly; she could only look dignified.
Mrs. Challoner grew a little alarmed at her daughter’s demure face: “Nan, darling, you know I am as fond of Dick as possible; but I cannot help being pleased with my new nephew, can I? And I must say I think Harry is very nice, in spite of his roughness.” But here Phillis, who had been unaccountably silent, suddenly struck in:
“Mother, it was a mistake mentioning Dick: the name is sacred. Nan, if it will please you we will declare that he is beautiful as a young Apollo.”
“Don’t be a goose, Phil!” from her sister. But Nan was smiling.
“As for Harry, he is a perfect hero. I expect great things from the great man. To my imagination he is a perfect Hercules,—Heracles, son of Zeus and Alcmene. I wonder if Harry could tell us the name of Hercules’s mother?”
“Of course not, and no one else either,” retorted Dulce.
But Phillis did not heed this.
“To me he shall be the young Alcides. He has promised to fight the Nemæan lion, in the shape of Richard Mayne the elder. By and by we shall have him striking off the heads of the Lernean Hydra. You look mystified, Nan. And I perceive Mattie has a perplexed countenance. I am afraid you are deficient in heathen mythology; but I will spare your ignorance. You will see, though, I am right––”
“But, Phillis––” broke in Dulce, eagerly. But Phillis waved her hand majestically at the interruption:
“Mother, to be serious, I consider Harry in the light of a providential interposition. You are always mourning that there is not a man belonging to us. Well, now we have got one, large as life, and larger, and a very good fellow, as you say; and we are no longer ‘forlorn females.’”
“And indeed, Phillis, I am most thankful for that, my dear; for if Harry be only as good as a brother to you––”
“He means to be more,” returned Phillis, with a sage nod of her head. “He talks in the coolest way, as though he had adopted the whole family and meant to put a spoke into the domestic wheel. ‘I must put a stop to this,’ or, ‘That must be altered,’ has been a frequent remark of his. Mother, if he is dreadfully rich, as he says, does he mean to make us rich too?”297
“My dear, we have no claim on him.”
“He thinks we have the strongest possible claim: does he not, Nan? You should have heard him talk this afternoon! According to him, we were never to sew gowns again; Nan and Dick were to be immediately united; the Friary was to be pulled down, and a glorified Glen Cottage to be erected in its stead. But mother,”—here Phillis’s lip grew plaintive,—“you won’t desert your own girls, and be talked over even by an Alcides? We do not mean to have our little deeds all put on the shelf in that off-hand fashion. I shall sew gowns as long as I like, in spite of a hundred Sir Harrys.”
And then they perceived that under Phillis’s fun there was a vein of serious humor, and that, in spite of her admiration of her hero, she was a little afraid that her notions of independence would be wounded.
They became divided on the question. Mrs. Challoner, who had never had a son of her own, and did not much like the idea of a son-in-law, was disposed to regard her nephew warmly, and to accord to him at once his privilege of being head of the family.
“In this case, a cousin is as good as a brother,” she averred; and Nan rather leaned to her opinion.
“You see,” she said, in her practical way, addressing no one in particular, but looking at Phillis, “it has been terribly against us, having no one belonging to us of the same name; and it will really give us a standing with some sort of people.”
“Fie, Nan! what a worldly speech! You are thinking of that tiresome Maynepereagain.”
“I have to think of him,” returned Nan, not at all put out by this. “Dick’s father must be a person of great importance to me. He has often hinted in my hearing that we have no relations, and that the Challoner name will die out. I expect he will be rather taken aback at Harry’s appearance.”
“Yes; and Dick will be jealous: he always is of other fellows, as he calls them. You must score that up against Dick, please. Well, I won’t deny that Harry may make himself useful there: all I protest against is the idea that he will bundle us out of this dear old Friary, and make us grand, in spite of ourselves.”
“Dear old Friary!—Oh, oh!” gasped Dulce; and even Nan looked mildly surprised.
“He will not make me give up my work until I choose,” continued Phillis, who was in an obstinate mood. “It is not make-believe play-work, I can tell him that;” but Mrs. Challoner grew tearful at this.
“Phillis, my dear, pray hush! Indeed—indeed I cannot have you talking as though you meant and wished to be a dressmaker all your life.”
And when Phillis asked, “Why not?” just for the sake of argument,—for in her heart she was growing heartily sick of her employment,—her mother threw up her hands in despair:298
“Oh, my dear Miss Drummond, do not believe her: Phillis is a good girl; but she is always like that,—hard to be convinced. She does not really mean it. She has worked harder than any of them; but she has only done it for her mother’s sake.”
“Of course she does not mean it,” echoed Nan, affectionately, and much struck by a sudden yearning look on Phillis’s face,—an expression of smothered pain; but Phillis drew away from her sister’s gentle grasp.
“I do mean it!” she said, almost passionately. “I am dreadfully tired of the work sometimes, and hate it. Oh, how I hate it! But I think I have been happy, too. I liked the excitement of the fighting, and the novelty of the thing; it was such fun,—first shocking people, and then winning them over in spite of themselves. One felt ‘plucky,’ as Harry said. And then one’s friends were so real.” And her eyes fell unconsciously on Mattie.
“Oh, yes,” returned Mattie, with her usual gush: “Archie and I took to you from the first. I must say I was surprised, knowing how fastidious Archie was, and his notions about young ladies in general. But, dear, he never would hear a word against you: he was even angry with Colonel Middleton the other day because—but there! I ought not to have told you that.”
“Oh, we know all about it,” returned Phillis, carelessly; but Dulce’s bright face looked a little overcast. “Son Hammond is in the case; and we can all judge of a father’s feelings by a certain example that shall be nameless. Good gracious, mammie! there comes the Alcides himself, and Dorothy has not cleared the tea-things! I vote we meet him in the garden, to avert breakages.” And Phillis’s proposition was carried out.
But when they were all seated in the little parlor again, and the lamp was brought, sundry packages made their appearence, and were delightedly unpacked by the girls, Phillis assisting with great interest, in spite of her heroic speeches.
“One can accept gifts from a cousin,” she said, afterwards.
Sir Harry had shown good taste in his purchases. The ornaments and knick-knacks were all pretty and well chosen. The good-natured fellow had ransacked the shops in Paris for such things as he thought would please his unknown cousins. The bracelets, and fans, and gloves, and laces, made Dulce almost dance with glee. The lace was for Aunt Catherine, he said; and there were gloves for everybody,—dozens and dozens of them. But the fans and bracelets were for the girls; and to-morrow he would get the bonbons for Dulce. And then, as the girls laughingly apportioned the spoil, he whispered something to Nan, at which she nodded and smiled.
Mattie, who was carefully admiring the lace in her short-sighted way, felt something touch her elbow, and found Nan299pushing a fan and a parcel of gloves towards her,—beautiful gloves, such as Isabel had in her trousseau.
“Yes; take them; we have so many; and, indeed, we have no use for more than a fan apiece. Oh, you extravagant Harry!”
Sir Harry laughed as he balanced the fan clumsily on his huge finger:
“Take it; you are very welcome, Miss Mattie. You know we are quite old acquaintances; and, indeed, I look on you as a sort of cousin.”
“Oh, dear!—thank you; you are very good, Sir Harry,” cried poor Mattie, blushing with pleasure.
Never had she spent such a day in her life,—a day wherein she had not been once snubbed, except in that remark of Archie’s about her collar, and that did not matter.
“Poor little woman, she looks very happy!” observed Mrs. Challoner, benevolently, as Mattie gathered up her spoils and went out of the room, accompanied by Dulce. “She is such a good little soul, and so amiable, that it is a pity Mr. Drummond is always finding fault with her. It spoils him, somehow; and I am sure she bears it very well.” She spoke to Nan, for her nephew seemed engrossed with tying up Laddie’s front paw with his handkerchief.
“I am afraid, from what she says, that they all snub her at home,” returned Nan. “It seems Grace is the favorite; but you know, mother, Mattie is just a little tiresome and awkward at times.”
“Yes; but she is very much improved. And I must say her temper is of the sweetest; for she never bears her brother any malice.” But at that moment Mattie re-entered the room: and Sir Harry, releasing Laddie, proceeded, as in duty bound, to escort her to the vicarage.
CHAPTER XLI.SIR HARRY BIDES HIS TIME.
Phillis might have spared herself that little outburst to which she had given vent on the day of her cousin’s arrival. For, in spite of the lordly way in which he had claimed his prerogative as the only male Challoner, Sir Harry took no further steps to interfere with her liberty: indeed, as the days and even the weeks passed away, and nothing particular happened in them, she was even a little disappointed.
For it is one thing to foster heroic intentions, but quite300another when one has no choice in the matter. The heroism seemed lost, somehow, when no one took the trouble to combat her resolution. Phillis began to tire of her work,—nay, more, to feel positive disgust at it. The merry evenings gave her a distaste for her morning labors, and the daylight seemed sometimes as though it would never fade into dark, so as to give her an excuse for folding up her work.
These fits of impatience were intermittent, and she spoke of them to no one: in other respects the new cousin brought a great deal of brightness and pleasure into their daily life.
They all grew very fond of him. Mrs. Challoner, indeed, was soon heard to say that she almost loved him like a son,—a speech that reached Dick’s ears by and by and made him excessively angry. “I should like to kick that fellow,” he growled, as he read the words. But then Dick never liked interlopers. He had conceived a hatred of Mr. Drummond on the spot. Sir Harry took up his quarters at the same hotel where Dick and his father had spent that one dreary evening. He gave lavish orders and excited a great deal of attention and talk by his careless munificence. Without being positively extravagant he had a free-handed way of spending his money: as he often said, “he liked to see things comfortable about him.” And, as his notions of comfort were somewhat expensive, his host soon conceived a great respect for him,—all the more that he gave himself no airs, never talked about his wealth except to his cousins, and treated his title as though it were not of the slightest consequence to himself or any one else; indeed, he was decidedly modest in all matters pertaining to himself.
But, being a generous soul, he loved to give. Every few days he went up to London, and he never returned without bringing gifts to the Friary. Dulce, who was from the first his chief favorite, revelled in French bonbons; hampers of wine, of choice game, or fruit from Covent Garden, filled the tiny larder to overflowing. Silks and ribbons, and odds and ends of female finery, were sent down from Marshall & Snelgrove’s, or Swan & Edgar’s. In vain Mrs. Challoner implored him not to spoil the girls, who had never had so many pretty things in their lives, and hardly knew what to do with them. Sir Harry would not deny himself this pleasure; and he came up evening after evening, overflowing with health and spirits, to join the family circle in the small parlor and enliven them with his stories of colonial life.
People began to talk about him. He was too big and too prominent a figure to pass unnoticed in Hadleigh. The Challoners and their odd ways, and their cousin the baronet who was a millionaire and unmarried, were canvassed in many a drawing-room. “We always knew they were not just ‘nobodies,’” as one young lady observed; and another remarked, a little scornfully, “that she supposed Sir Henry Challoner would put a stop to all that ridiculous dressmaking now.” But when they301found that Nan and Phillis went about as usual, taking orders and fitting on dresses, their astonishment knew no bounds.
Sir Harry watched them with a secret chuckle. “He must put a stop to all that presently,” he said; but just at first it amused him to see it all. “It was so pretty and plucky of them,” he thought.
He would saunter into the work-room in the morning, and watch them for an hour together as he sat and talked to them. After the first they never minded him, and his presence made no difference to them. Nan measured and cut out, and consulted Phillis in her difficulties, as usual. Dulce sang over her sewing-machine, and Phillis went from one to the other with a grave, intent face. Sometimes she would speak petulantly to him, and bid him not whistle or tease Laddie: but that was when one of her fits of impatience was on her. She was generally gracious to him, and made him welcome.
When he was tired of sitting quiet, he would take refuge with Aunt Catherine in her little parlor, or go into the vicarage for a chat with Mattie and her brother: he was becoming very intimate there. Sometimes, but not often, he would call at the White House; but, though the Cheynes liked him, and Magdalene was amused at his simplicity, there was not much in common between them.
He had taken a liking to Colonel Middleton and his daughter, and would have found his way to Brooklyn over and over again, only the colonel gave him no encouragement. They had met accidentally in the grounds of the White House, and Mr. Cheyne had introduced them to each other; but the colonel bore himself very stiffly on that occasion and ever after when they met on the Parade and in the reading-room. In his heart he was secretly attracted by Sir Harry’s blunt ways and honest face; but he was a cousin of those Challoners, and intimacy was not to be desired: so their intercourse was limited to a brief word or two.
“Your father does not want to know me,” he said once, in his outspoken way, to Miss Middleton, when they met at the very gate of Brooklyn, and she had asked him, with some little hesitation, if he were coming in. “It is a pity,” he added, regretfully, “for I have taken a fancy to him: he seems a downright good sort, and we agree in politics.”
Elizabeth blushed; for once her courtesy and love of truth were sadly at variance.
“He does like you very much, Sir Harry,” she said; and then she hesitated.
“Only my cousins sew gowns,” he returned, with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes, “so he must not encourage me,—eh, Miss Middleton?—as we are all in the same boat. Well, we must allow for prejudice. By and by we will alter all that.” And then he gave her a good-natured nod, and sauntered away to tell his old friend Mattie all about it; for he had a kindly302feeling towards the little woman, and made her his confidante on these occasions.
Phillis still called him Alcides, to his endless mystification: but she privately wondered when his labors were to begin. After that first afternoon he did not speak much of his future intentions: indeed, he was a little reserved with the girls, considering their intimacy; but to his aunt he was less reticent.
“Do you know, Aunt Catherine,” he said one day to her, “that that old house of yours—Glen Cottage, is it not?—will soon be in the market? Ibbetson wants to get off the remainder of the lease.”
Mrs. Challoner leaned back in her chair and put down her knitting:
“Are you sure, Harry? Then Adelaide was right: she told me in her last letter that Mrs. Ibbetson’s health was so bad that they thought of wintering at Hyeres, and that there was some talk of giving up the house.”
“Oh, yes, it is true,” he returned, carelessly; “Ibbetson told me so himself. It is a pretty little place enough, and they have done a good deal to it, even in a few months: they want to get off the lease, and rid themselves of the furniture, which seems to be all new. It appears they have had some money left to them unexpectedly; and now Mrs. Ibbetson’s health is so bad, he wants to try travelling, and thinks it a great pity to be hampered with a house at present. I should say the poor little woman is in a bad way, myself.”
“Dear me, how sad! And they have been married so short a time,—not more than six months. She comes of a weakly stock, I fear. I always said she looked consumptive, poor thing! Dear little Glen Cottage! and to think it will change hands so soon again!”
“You seem fond of it, Aunt Catherine,” for her tone was full of regret.
“My dear,” she answered, seriously, “I always loved that cottage so! The drawing-room and the garden were just to my taste; and then the girls were so happy there.”
“Would you not like a grander house to live in?” he asked, in the same indifferent tone. “I do not think it is half good enough for you and the girls.”
Mrs. Challoner opened her eyes rather widely at this: but his voice gave her no clue to his real meaning, and she thought it was just his joking way with her.
“It would seem a palace after this!” she returned, with a sigh. “Somehow, I never cared for great big houses, they are so much expense to keep up; and when one has not a man in the house––”
“Why, you have me, Aunt Catherine!” speaking up rather briskly.
“Yes, my dear; and you are a great comfort to us all. It is so nice to have some one to consult; and, though I would303not say so to Nan for the world, Dick is so young that I never could consult him.”
“By the bye, that reminds me I must have a look at that young fellow,” returned her nephew. “Let me see, the Oxford term is over, and he will be home again. Suppose I run over to Oldfield—it is no distance from town—and leave my card on Mr. Mayne senior?”
“You, Harry!” And Mrs. Challoner looked quite taken aback at the proposition.
“Well,” he remarked, candidly, “I think it is about time something was done: Nan looks awfully serious sometimes. What is the good of being the head of one’s family, if one is not to settle an affair like that? I don’t feel inclined to put up with any more nonsense in that quarter, I can tell you that, Aunt Catherine.”
“But, Harry,”—growing visibly alarmed,—“you do not know Mr. Mayne: he can make himself so excessively disagreeable.”
“So can most men when they like.”
“Yes; but not exactly in that way. I believe he is really very fond of Dick; but he wants to order his life in his own way, and no young man will stand that.”
“No, by Jove! that is rather too strong for a fellow. I should say Master Dick could not put up with that.”
“It seems my poor Nan is not good enough for his son, just because she had no money and has been obliged to make herself useful. Does it not seem hard, Harry?—my beautiful Nan! And the Maynes are just nobodies: why, Mr. Mayne’s father was only a shopkeeper in a very small way, and his wife’s family was no better!”
“Well, you must not expect me to understand all that,” replied her nephew, in a puzzled tone. “In the colonies, we did not think much about that sort of thing: it would not have done there to inquire too narrowly into a man’s antecedents. I knew capital fellows whose fathers had been butchers, and bakers, and candlestick-makers; and, bless me! what does it matter if the fellow is all right himself?” he finished; for the last Challoner was a decided Radical.
But Mrs. Challoner, who was mildly obstinate in such matters, would not yield her point:
“You would think differently if you had been educated at Eton. In England, it is necessary to discriminate among one’s acquaintances. I find no fault with Dick: he is as nice and gentlemanly as possible; but his father has not got his good-breeding; possibly he had not his advantages. But it is they—the Maynes—who would be honored by an alliance with one of my daughters.” And Mrs. Challoner raised her head and drew herself up with such queenly dignity that Sir Harry dared not argue the point.
“Oh, yes; I see,” he returned, hastily. “Well, I shall let304him know what you think. You need not be afraid I shall lower your dignity, Aunt Catherine. I meant to be rather high and mighty myself,—that is, if I could manage it.” And he broke into one of his huge laughs.
Mrs. Challoner was very fond of her nephew; but she was not a clever woman, and she did not always understand his hints. When they were alone together, he was perpetually making this sort of remarks to her in a half-serious, half-joking way, eliciting her opinions, consulting her tastes, with a view to his future plans.
With the girls he was provokingly reticent. Phillis and Dulce used to catechise him sometimes; but his replies were always evasive.
“Do you know, Harry,” Phillis said to him once, very gravely, “I think you are leading a dreadfully idle life? You do nothing absolutely all day but walk to and fro between the hotel and the Friary.”
“Come, now,” retorted her cousin, in an injured tone, “I call that confoundedly hard on a fellow who has come all these thousands of miles just to cultivate his relations and enjoy a little relaxation. Have I not worked hard enough all my life to earn a holiday now?”
“Oh, yes,” she returned, provokingly, “we all know how hard you have worked; but all the same it does not do to play at idleness too long. You are very much improved, Harry. Your tailor has done wonders for you; and I should not be ashamed to walk down Bond Street with you any afternoon, though the people do stare, because you are so big. But don’t you think it is time to settle down? You might take rooms somewhere. Lord Fitzroy knows of some capital ones in Sackville Street; Algie Burgoyne had them.”
“Well, no, thank you, Phillis: I don’t think I shall go in for rooms.”
“Well, then, a house: you know you are so excessively rich, Harry,” drawling out her words in imitation of his rather slow pronunciation.
“Oh, of course I shall take a house; but there is plenty of time for that.”
And when she pressed him somewhat eagerly to tell her in what neighborhood he meant to live, he only shrugged his shoulders, and remarked, carelessly, that he would have a look round at all sorts of places by and by.
“But do you mean to take a house and live all alone?” asked Dulce. “Won’t you find it rather dull?”
“What’s a fellow to do?” replied her cousin, enigmatically. “I suppose Aunt Catherine will not undertake the care of me?—I am too big, as you call it, for a houseful of women!”
“Well, yes; perhaps you are,” she replied, contemplating him thoughtfully. “We should not know quite what to do with you.”305
“I wish I could get rid of a few of my superfluous inches,” he remarked, dolorously; “for people seem to find me sadly in the way sometimes.”
But Dulce said, kindly,—
“Oh, no, Harry; we never find you in the way: do we, mammie? We should be dreadfully dull without you now. I can hear you whistling a quarter of a mile off, and it sounds so cheerful. If there were only a house big enough for you next door, that would do nicely.”
“Oh. I dare say I shall not be far off: shall I, Aunt Catherine?” for, to his aunt’s utter bewilderment, he had established a sort of confidence between them, and expected her to understand all his vague hints. “You will not speak about this to the girls; this is just between you and me,” he would say to her, when sometimes she had not a notion what he meant.
“I don’t understand you, Harry,” she said, once. “Why did you stop me just now when I was going to tell Phillis about the Ibbetsons leaving Glen Cottage? She would have been so interested.”
“You must keep that to yourself a little while, Aunt Catherine: it will be such a surprise to the girls, you know. Did I tell you about the new conservatory Ibbetson has built? It leads out of the drawing-room, and improves the room wonderfully, they say.”
“My dear Harry! what an expense! That is just what Mr. Mayne was always wanting us to do; and Nan was so fond of flowers. It was just what the room needed to make it perfect.” And Mrs. Challoner folded her hands, with a sigh at the remembrance of the house she had loved so dearly.
“They say Gilsbank is for sale,” remarked her nephew, rather suddenly, after this.
“What! Gilsbank, where old Admiral Hawkins lived? Nan saw the announcement of his death the other day, and she said then the place would soon be put up for sale. Poor old man! He was a martyr to gout.”
“I had a look at it the other day,” he replied, coolly. “Why, it is not a hundred yards from your old cottage. There is a tidy bit of land, and the house is not so bad, only it wants doing up; but the furniture—that is for sale too—is very old-fashioned and shabby.”
“Are you thinking of it for yourself?” asked his aunt, in surprise. “Why, Gilsbank is a large place; it would never do for a single man. You would find the rooms Phillis proposed far handier.”
“Why, Aunt Catherine!” in a tone of strong remonstrance. “You don’t mean to condemn me to a life of single blessedness because of my size?”
“Oh, Harry, of course not! My dear boy, what an idea!”
“And some one may be found in time who could put up even with red hair.”306
“Oh, yes; that need not be an obstacle.” But she looked at him with vague alarm. Of whom could he be thinking?
He caught her expression, and threw back his head with one of his merry laughs:
“Oh, no, Aunt Catherine; you need not be afraid. I am not going to make love to one of my cousins; I know your views on the subject, and that would not suit my book at all. I am quite on your side there.”
“Surely you will tell me, my dear, if you are serious?”
“Oh, yes, when I have anything to tell; but I think I will have a good look round first.” And then, of his own accord, he changed the subject. He was a little sparing of his hints after that, even to his aunt.
It was shortly after this that he came into the Friary one evening and electrified his cousins by two pieces of news. He had just called at the vicarage, he said; but he had not gone in, for Miss Mattie had run downstairs in a great bustle to tell him her sister Grace had just arrived. Her brother had been down to Leeds and brought her up with him. Phillis put down her work; her face had become suddenly rather pale.
“Grace has come,” she half whispered to herself. And then she added aloud, “Poor Mattie will be glad, and sorry too! She will like to have her sister with her for the New Year; but in a few weeks she will have to pack up her own things and go home. And she was only saying the other day that she has never been so happy in her life as she has been here.”
“Why can’t she stay, then?” asked Sir Harry, rather abruptly. “I don’t hold with people making themselves miserable for nothing: that does not belong to my creed.”
“Oh, poor Mattie has not a choice in the matter,” returned Nan, who had grown very fond of her little neighbor. “Though she is thirty, she must still do as other people bid her. They cannot both be spared from home,—at least, I believe not,—and so her mother has recalled her.”
“Oh, but that is nonsense!” replied Sir Harry, rather crossly for him. “Girls are spared well enough when they are married. And I thought the Drummonds were not well off. Did not Phillis tell me so?”
“They are very badly off; but then, you see, Mr. Drummond does not want two sisters to take care of his house; and, though he tries to be good to Mattie, he is not so fond of her as he is of his sister Grace; and they have always planned to live together, and so poor Mattie has to go.”
“Yes, and I must say I am sorry for the poor little woman,” observed Mrs. Challoner. “There is a large family of girls and boys,—I think Mr. Drummond told us he had seven sisters,—and Mattie seems left out in the cold among them all: they laugh at her oddities, and quiz her most unmercifully; even Mr. Drummond does, and Nan scolds him for it; but he has not307been so bad lately. It is rather hard that none of them seem to want her.”
“You forget Grace is very good to her, mother,” broke in Phillis, somewhat eagerly. “Mattie always says so.”
“By the by, I must have a look at this paragon. Is not her name among those in my pocket-book?” returned her cousin, wickedly. “I saw Miss Sartoris at Oldfield that day, and she was too grand for my taste. Why, a fellow would never dare to speak to her. I have scored that one off the list, Phillis.”
“My dears, what have you been saying to Harry?”
“Oh, nothing, mammie,” returned Dulce, hastily, fearing her mother would be shocked. “Phillis was only in her nonsense-mood; but Harry is such a goose, and will take things seriously. I wish you would let me have your pocket-book a moment, and I would tear out the page.” But Sir Harry returned it safely to his pocket.
“What was your other piece of news?” asked Nan, in her quiet voice, when all this chatter had subsided.
“Oh, I had almost forgotten it myself! only Miss Middleton charged me to tell you that ‘son Hammond’ has arrived by the P. and O. Steamer the ‘Cerberus,’ and that she and her father were just starting for Southampton to meet him.”
CHAPTER XLII.“COME, NOW, I CALL THAT HARD.”
Phillis was unusually silent during the remainder of the evening; but, as she bade Nan good-night at the door of her little room, she lingered a moment, shading the flame of her candle with her hand.
“Do you think Mattie will bring her sister round to see us, to-morrow?” she asked, in a very low tone.
“Oh, yes,—I am sure I hope so,” returned Nan, sleepily, not noticing the restrained eagerness of Phillis’s manner. “We can hardly call first, under our present circumstances. Mr. Drummond knows that.” And Phillis withdrew, as though she were satisfied with the answer.
Nothing more was said on the subject; and they settled themselves to their work as usual on the following morning, Dulce chattering and singing snatches of songs,—for she was a most merry little soul,—Nan cheerful and ready for conversation with any one; but Phillis withdrew herself to the farthest window and stitched away in grave silence. And, seeing such was her mood, her sisters wisely forbore to disturb her.
At twelve o’clock the gate-bell sounded, and Dulce, who308hailed any interruption as a joyful reprieve, announced delightedly that Mattie and a tall young lady were coming up the flagged walk; and in an instant Phillis’s work lay untouched on her lap.
“Are you all here? Oh, dear, I am so glad,” exclaimed Mattie, bustling into the room with a radiant face. “I have brought Grace to see you; she arrived last night.” And in a moment the young stranger was surrounded and welcomed most cordially.
Phillis looked at her curiously for a moment: indeed, during the whole visit her eyes rested upon Grace’s face from time to time, as though she were studying her. She had heard so much of this girl that she had almost feared to be disappointed in her; but every moment her interest increased.
Grace Drummond was not a pretty girl,—with the exception of Isabel and the boys, the Drummond family had not the slightest pretension to beauty,—but she was fair and tranquil-looking, and her expression was gentle and full of character. She had very soft clear eyes, with a trace of sadness in them; but her lips were thin—like her mother’s—and closed firmly, and the chin was a little massively cut for a woman.
In looking at the lower part of this girl’s face, a keen observer would read the tenacity of a strong will; but the eyes had the appealing softness that one sees in some dumb creatures.
They won Phillis at once. After the first moment, her reserved manner thawed and became gracious; and before half an hour had passed she and Grace were talking as though they had known each other all their lives.
Nan watched them smilingly as she chatted with Mattie: she knew her sister was fastidious in her likings, and that she did not take to people easily. Phillis was pleasant to all her friends and acquaintances: but she was rarely intimate with them, as Nan and Dulce were wont to be. She held her head a little high, as though she felt her own superiority.
“Phillis is very amusing and clever; but one does not know her as well as Nan and Dulce,” even Carrie Paine had been heard to say; and certainly Phillis had never talked to Carrie as she did to this stranger.
Grace was just as must charmed on her side. On her return, she delighted and yet pained her brother by her warm praises of his favorites.
“Oh, Archie!” she exclaimed, as they sat at luncheon in the old wainscoted dining-room at the vicarage, “you are quite right in saying the Challoners are not like any other girls. They are all three so nice and pretty; but the second one—Miss Phillis—is most to my taste.”
Archie checked an involuntary exclamation, but Mattie covered it.
“Dear me, Grace!” she observed, innocently; “I rather309wonder at your saying that. Nan is by far the prettiest: is she not, Archie? Her complexion and coloring are perfect.”
“Oh, yes! If you are talking of mere looks, I cannot dispute that,” returned Grace, a little impatiently; “but, in my opinion, there is far more in her sister’s face: she has the beauty of expression, which is far higher than that of form or coloring. I should say she has far more character than either of them.”
“They are none of them wanting in that,” replied Archie, breaking up his bread absently.
“No; that’s just what I say: they are perfectly unlike other girls. They are so fresh, and simple, and unconscious, that it is quite a pleasure to be with them: but if I were to choose a friend from among them I should certainly select Miss Phillis.” And to this her brother made no reply.
“They are all so pleased about Tuesday,” interrupted Mattie, at this point,—“Nan was so interested and amused about my grand tea-party, as she called it. They have all promised to come, only Mrs. Challoner’s cold will not allow her to go out this severe weather. And then we met Sir Harry, and I introduced him to Grace, and he will be delighted to come too. I wish you would let me ask Miss Middleton and her brother, Archie; and then we should be such a nice little party.”
“How can you be so absurd, Mattie?” returned Archie, with a touch of his old irritability. “A nice confusion you would make, if you were left to arrange things! You know the colonel’s one object in life is to prevent his son from having any intercourse with the Challoners; and you would ask him to meet them the first evening after his arrival in the place.”
“Is the father so narrow in his prejudices as that?” asked Grace, who had quite forgotten her own shocked feelings when she first heard that Archie was visiting a family of dressmakers on equal terms.
“Oh, dear! I forgot,” sighed Mattie, taking her brother’s blame meekly, as usual. “How very stupid of me! But would you not like the Cheynes or the Leslies invited, Archie? Grace ought to be introduced to some of the best people.”
“You may leave Grace to me,” returned her brother, somewhat haughtily: “I will take care of her introductions. As for your tea-party, Mattie, I shall be much obliged if you will keep it within its first limits,—just the Challoners and Sir Harry. If any one be asked, it ought to be Noel Frere: he has rather a dull time of it, living alone in lodgings,”—the Rev. Noel Frere being a college chum of Archie’s, who had come down to Hadleigh to recruit himself by a month or two of idleness. “Perhaps we had better have him, as there will be so many ladies.”
“Oh, yes,—of course! He is so nice and clever,” observed Grace, not noticing the shade on Mattie’s face. “How pleased you must be to have him staying here so long, Archie!—you two were always such friends.”310
“He comes nearly every evening,” returned Mattie, disconsolately. “He may suit you, Grace, because you are clever yourself; but I am dreadfully afraid of him, he is so dry and sarcastic. Must he really be asked for Tuesday, Archie?”
“Yes, indeed: you ought to have thought of him first. I am sorry for your bad taste, Mattie, if you do not like Frere: he is a splendid fellow, though terribly delicate, I fear. Now, Gracie, if we have finished luncheon, I should like you to put on your wraps, and I will show you some of my favorite haunts; and perhaps we shall meet Frere.”
Grace hesitated for a moment. She thought Archie would have included Mattie in his invitation; but he did nothing of the kind, and she knew him too well to suggest such a thing.
“Good-bye, Mattie dear. I hope you will have some tea ready for us when we come back,” she said, kissing her sister affectionately; but they neither of them noticed the pained wistfulness of Mattie’s look as the door closed upon them.
They were going out without her; and on Grace’s first day, too. Archie was going to show her the church, and the schools, and the model cottages where his favorite old women lived,—all those places that Mattie had visited and learned to love during the eight months she had lived with her brother. In a few weeks she must say good-bye to them all, and go back to the dull old house at Leeds, to be scolded by her mother for her awkward ways, and to be laughed at and teased by her brothers and sisters. Archie was bad enough sometimes, but then he was Archie, and had a right to his bad humors; but with the boys and girls it was less endurable. It was, “Oh, you stupid old Matt! Of course it was all your fault;” or, “Mattie, you goose!” from Fred; or, “You silly child, Mattie” from her father, who found her a less amusing companion than Grace; and even Dottie would say, “Oh, it is only Mattie: I never care if she scolds me.”
The home atmosphere was a little depressing, Mattie thought, with a sigh, dearly as she loved her young torments. She knew she would find it somewhat trying after these eight months of comparative freedom. True, Archie had snubbed her and kept her in order; but one tyrant is preferable to many. At home the thirty-years-old Mattie was only one of the many daughters,—the old maid of the family,—the unattractive little wall-flower who was condemned to wither unnoticed on its stalk. Here, in her brother’s vicarage, she had been a person of consequence, whom only the master of the house presumed to snub.
The maids liked their good-natured mistress, who never found fault with them, and who was so bustling and clever a little housekeeper. The poor people and the school-children liked Mattie too. “Our Miss Drummond” they called her for a long time, rather to Grace’s discomfiture. “Ah, she is a rare one, when a body is low!” as old Goody Saunders once said.
And Archie’s friends respected the little woman, in spite of311her crudities and decidedly odd ways. Miss Middleton and the Challoners were quite fond of her. So no wonder Mattie grew low at the thought of leaving her friends.
Grace had come to take her place. Nevertheless, she had welcomed her on the previous evening with the utmost cheerfulness and unselfishness. She had shown her the house; she had introduced her to the Challoners; she had overwhelmed her with a thousand little attentions; and Grace had not been ungrateful.
“I am afraid this is hard for you, Mattie,” Grace had said to her, as the sisters were unpacking late the previous night. “I ought not be so happy to come, when I know I am turning you out.” And Mattie had winked away a tear, and answered, quite cheerily,—
“Oh, no, Grace; you must not feel that. I have had a nice time, and enjoyed myself so much with dear Archie, and now it is your turn; and, you know, he has always wanted you from the first.”
“Poor dear fellow!” murmured Grace; “but he looks thin, Mattie. Perhaps I ought to be here, as he wants me; but I shall never keep his house as beautifully as you have done. Mother would be astonished if she saw it.” And this piece of well-deserved praise went far to console Mattie that night.
But she began to feel just a little sore at breakfast-time. Once or twice, Archie decidedly ignored her, and turned to Grace; he even brought her his gloves to mend, though Mattie had been his faithful mender all these months.
“Come into the study, and we will have a talk, Grace,” he had said, and as Grace had involuntarily waited for her sister to accompany them, he had-added, hastily: “Oh, Mattie is always busy at this time with butchers and bakers! Come along, Grace:” and, though Mattie had no such business on her hands, she dared not join them.
It was only when a parish meeting called the young vicar away that Mattie bethought herself of the Challoners.
Poor Mattie! Low spirits were not much in her line. She had never thought enough of herself to indulge in the luxury of wounded susceptibility,—the atmosphere that surrounded her had been too rough and bracing for that; but nevertheless this afternoon she longed to indulge in a good cry. Happily, however, before the first tear had begun to redden her eyelids—indeed, she hardly got her mouth into the proper pucker—a vigorous pull at the bell warned her of an impending visitor, and immediately afterwards Sir Harry marched into the room, looking ruddier than ever with the cold air and exercise, his warm coloring kindling a glow in the room.
His heavy footsteps shook the old flooring of the vicarage; but as he greeted Mattie he looked round him, as though somewhat surprised to find her alone.
“How do you do, Miss Mattie? Why, what have you done312with your sister?” he asked, in rather a disappointed tone. “I came to have a chat with you both.”
Another little sting for Mattie: he had only come to see Grace.
“She has gone out with Archie,” she returned, in a subdued voice. “He is showing her the church and the schools.”
“I was up at the Friary just now,” he said, carelessly, “and they were all talking about your sister, praising her up to the skies. What an odd capacity women have for falling in love with each other at first sight! Phillis especially seemed very far gone. So I told them I would just come and have a good look at this paragon: one cannot judge of a person in a hat and veil.”
“I am sure you will like Grace,” replied Mattie, reviving a little at the idea of her sister’s perfections. “She is not pretty, exactly, though Archie and I think her so; but she is so nice and clever. Oh, you should hear those two talk! it is perfectly wonderful to listen to them!”
“It strikes me you are a little left out in the cold, aren’t you, Miss Mattie?” asked Sir Harry, with one of his shrewd good-humored looks. “Why did you not go out with them?”
“Oh, Archie never wants me when he has Grace,” answered Mattie, with a sudden pang at the truthfulness of this speech. “They have always been so much to each other, those two.”
“He would want you fast enough if Miss Grace—is that not her name?—were to marry and leave him to shift for himself,” was the somewhat matter-of-fact answer.
But Mattie shook her head at this with a faint smile:
“Grace will never marry. She would not leave Archie.”
“Oh, but that is nonsense, do you know?—sheer nonsense! Many girls talk like that, but they change their mind in the end. Why, the parson may marry himself. You don’t suppose a good looking fellow like that intends to be an old bachelor? And then what will Miss Grace do?”
“I don’t know. I am afraid she will miss him dreadfully.”
“Oh, but she will get over it all right. It does not do to make a fuss over that sort of thing. Sentimentality between brothers and sisters is all very well in its way, but it won’t hold against a wife’s or husband’s claims. I never had any myself, so I don’t know; but I find it precious lonely without them. That is why I have adopted my cousins. A man must care for some one.”
“Yes, indeed,” echoed Mattie, with a sigh.
“I am afraid your people do not use you very well, Miss Mattie,” he went on, with cheerful sympathy that was quite a cordial in its way. “You look a bit down this afternoon; a fellow would call it in the blues, and he would be thinking of a cigar and brandy-and-soda. What a pity women don’t smoke! it is no end soothing to the spirits!”
“We have got afternoon tea,” returned Mattie, beginning to smile at this.313
“Well, why don’t you ring and order some?” he replied, quite seriously. “Do, please, Miss Mattie, if it will put a little heart into you. Why, I should like a cup myself uncommonly. There never was such a fellow for afternoon tea.” And then Mattie did ring the bell, and, Sir Harry having stirred the fire into a cheerful blaze, and the little brass kettle beginning to sing cheerily on its trivet, things soon looked more comfortable.
“Now you are all right,” he remarked, presently. “You look quite a different sort of body now. When I first came in you reminded me of Cinderella in a brown dress, sitting all alone, by a very black fire. I do believe you were on the verge of crying. Now, weren’t you, Miss Mattie?” And Mattie, with much shame, owned to the impeachment.
“And what was it all about, eh?” he asked, with such a coaxing peremptoriness that Mattie confessed that she was rather dull at the thought that nobody wanted her, and that she must go home; and, on being further pressed and questioned, out it all came,—Mattie’s shortcomings, her stupid ways, and the provocation she offered to home criticism. Sir Harry listened and laughed, and every now and then threw in a jesting remark; but so encouraging was his manner and so evident his interest that Mattie found herself talking as she had never done to any one but Miss Middleton. Before she had finished, Sir Harry knew all about the household in Lowder Street, and had formed a tolerable estimate of every member of the family,—the depressed father; the care-worn and some what stern mother; the boys, clever and handsome and flippant; the girls in all stages of awkwardness; and the quiet, talented Grace, who was every one’s right hand, and who had come to the vicarage to dispossess Mattie.
“Come, now, I call that hard; I do, upon my word!” he repeated more than once at the end of Mattie’s little narrative. “Women have a lot put upon them. I dare say if I had had sisters I should have bullied them sometimes. Men are awful tyrants, aren’t they, Miss Mattie?”
Mattie took this literally.
“I do not think you would be a tyrant, Sir Harry,” she returned, simply, and then wondered why he suddenly colored up to the roots of his hair.
“Oh, there is no knowing,” he replied, in an embarrassed tone. “I have never had any one to bully. I think I shall try my hand on Dulce, only she is such a little spit-fire. Well, I must be going,” he went on, straightening himself. “By the bye, I shall not see you again until Tuesday; I have to run over to Oldfield about a lot of business I have in hand. Do you know Oldfield?”
“Oh, no; but Nan and Phillis have described it so often that I seem as though I have been there.”314
“It is a niceish place, and I am half inclined to settle there myself; there is a house going that would just suit me.”
Mattie’s face lengthened: she did not like the idea of losing Sir Harry, he had been so good-natured and kind to her.
“One would never see you if you live at Oldfield,” she said, a little sorrowfully; and again Sir Harry looked embarrassed.
“Oh, but you will be at Leeds, so it won’t make much difference. But I do not want to be parted from Aunt Catherine and the girls: there is a great deal to arrange. Perhaps, before you go, I shall be able to tell you that things are settled. Anyhow, good-bye till Tuesday.” And then he nodded to her in a friendly way, and Mattie returned to her fireplace refreshed and comforted.
Archie and Grace came in presently, bringing another current of cold air with them. They both looked bright and happy, as though they had enjoyed their walk. Grace’s pale cheeks had the loveliest tinge in them.
“Have we left you too long alone, Mattie dear?” she asked, as she took the cup of tea offered her. “How cosy this dear old room looks! and what a beautiful fire!”
“Sir Harry has been emptying the coal-scuttle!” laughed Mattie. “What a pity you missed him, Grace! he has been so amusing.”
Grace smiled incredulously:
“Why, that great big Sir Harry Challoner whom you introduced this morning! my dear Mattie, I am sure he could never be amusing. I was not greatly prepossessed with him.”
“Mattie’s geese are all swans. I don’t think much of him myself,” broke in Archie, in a satirical voice. “I like quality better than quantity. He is so big, I am sure his brains must suffer by comparison. Now, there is Frere.”
“Oh, yes, we met Mr. Frere!” interrupted Grace, eagerly; “and Archie and he had such a talk: it was delightful only to listen to it. I liked his ideas on ecclesiastical architecture, Archie.” And then followed an animated discussion between the sister and brother, about a book of Ruskin’s that they had both been reading. Mattie tried to follow them; but she had not read Ruskin, and they soon left her miles behind; indeed, after the first few minutes they seemed to have forgotten her existence; but somehow Mattie did not feel so forlorn as usual.
“Come, now, I call that hard,” a sympathizing voice seemed to say in her ear. Sir Harry’s genial presence, his blunt, kindly speeches, had done Mattie good: he had called her Cinderella, and made the fire blaze for her, and had coaxed her in quite a brotherly manner to tell him her little troubles and Mattie felt very grateful to him.
So she stared into the fire wistful and happy, while the others talked over her head, and quite started when she heard her own name.315
“We are forgetting Mattie; all this must be so dull for her,” Grace was saying, as she touched her shoulder caressingly. “Come upstairs with me, dear: we can have a chat while we get ready for dinner. You must not let your friends make themselves so much at home, you extravagant child, for your fire is far too large for comfort;” but Mattie turned away from it reluctantly as she followed her sister out of the room.