as tight as drum-parchment, his prayer-book gorgeous, his air supercilious. I found it almost impossible not to have Prentice in my thoughts; he reminded me of some description I had seen in one of Dickens's works, of a youth about his age. When we sang, he seemed to express by his manner that we had done it very well, considering. When the Vicar preached, Prentice was attentive; he approved now and then, as might be seen by his conveying into his countenance a look which plainly said, "That is not bad-not at all bad. I quite agree with you." He was also so good as to keep the younger pupils in order, and occasionally he favoured me with a look of curiosity, and, I thought, of disfavour. I felt all the time as if Dickens must have seen and sketched him. As we came out of church, Prentice and Valentine met, and stayed behind to talk, Valentine running after and joining us, so very much out of breath that Mrs. Henfrey rebuked him for his imprudence. "When you know,” she remarked, "that Dr. Limpsey particularly said you were not to exert yourself." Why, sister," said Valentine, "would you have me let Prentice think that I'm broken-winded? I say," addressing me, “just take my arm for a minute, will you? Do." He said this half confidentially, and I did take his arm; but he was so tall that I shortly withdrew, saying that I preferred to walk alone. "Oh," he answered, "I don't care about it now. That fellow Prentice is out of sight. What do you think he stopped me to talk about?" "I don't know." "Why, about you. Asked who you were-and whether you were engaged?" "Impertinent boy, what business is it of his?" "Asked me if I thought of making myself agreeable! I replied that I had done that already; and he was as savage as possible, though he pretended to be only amused." "You were impertinent if you said that." "Oh, don't be vexed; I only said it for fun. Come, I know you are not really angry." And, with another laugh and chuckle, he went on: "He said he supposed we were not engaged." "Engaged!" I exclaimed. such a thing! " "Engaged! As if I should think of "Well, don't be so hot about it. I said 'No!' Distinctly I said "No!'" "To a boy like you, why the very idea is preposterous." So this was my first service in an English church, after months of sea-prayers, or strange looking on at foreign Roman Catholic worship. How much I had wished for such a Sunday-how fervent I had ex pected my prayers to be! but now I felt that some of my thoughts had been taken up by a conceited schoolboy, and others had strayed to the wood, and been occupied with Mr. Brandon's speeches, and also with his remarks about Tom. In the afternoon things were very little better. Mr. Brandon read the lessons for the Vicar. This seemed to be his custom, for it excited no attention; but it was a pleasure and a surprise to me. Then Prentice forced himself on my mind by his obvious watchfulness of Valentine and me, and the determined manner in which he kept his face turned in our direction. I could not help thinking, too, that Valentine was needlessly careful to find the lessons and hymns for me, but I had no means of preventing this, nor of keeping his eyes on his book instead of on my face, where they were not wanted, and only fixed to make Prentice burst with suspicion and jealousy. We sat all together in the evening, and there was sacred music and some reading aloud; but I found opportunity, at last, to give Valentine a lecture. I said I would not be made ridiculous; that Prentice was a most absurd boy, and I wondered Valentine could wish to make him believe there was a single other youth in the world as ridiculous as himself. But the next morning, while Valentine and I were doing our Greek, the two ladies working, and the two girls reading novels, Mr. Brandon came in. He had written all Mr. Mortimer's letters, he said,—had nothing more to do for him all day: he and Tom were going to walk over to Wigfield, and would we go with them? Liz and Lou were disconcerted. The box was going back to Mudie's, they said, and they had not finished the books. Tom came in, and uttered some denunciations against novel-writers, but the girls kept their seats, and looked goodnaturedly determined not to yield. "Dorothea would not come if they did-she had her Greek to do," said Lou. Liz said it was windy, and then that it was cold, and then that it was a long walk to Wigfield; finally, they both proposed that we should go some other day. "Very well; then suppose we give it up, Graham?" "With all my heart," said Tom, idly. "We'll go with you in the afternoon," Liz promised. "I don't see how you can, as the Marchioness is coming to call, and we know it," said Mrs. Henfrey. "Ah, yes," said Valentine to me, "she is coming to call, so you had better put your war paint on, and that best satin petticoat of yours that I like. She is made much of in these parts, I can tell you, for she is the only great lady we have." "She is not coming to call on me," I answered; "so what does it signify?" Oh, yes, she is," said Mr. Brandon; "I met her on Saturday, and she said so. Nile." It seems that, three years ago, your uncle was up the "Yes," answered Tom, so far the narrative is historical. Anything she may have added to that is probably not so." "Very probably, indeed," said St. George. "I have not formed any notion as to what really occurred, though I have heard the story before. Perhaps their old yacht, knowing she could not possibly hang together another day, sagaciously ran herself on to a spit of sand of her own accord ; and whether there was a leak so large in her keel,. that three crocodiles, who had been crying all the morning, walked in, and, sniffing loudly, began to search for pocket-handkerchiefs, or whether any of the more ordinary events of yacht-life took place, I cannot undertake to say; but I know the Marquis was very glad when Mr. Rollin, who was coming down, took them on board the 'Curlew,' and brought them to Cairo." "It's too bad to take ladies to sea," said Tom. "My sister was wretchedly ill before she became accustomed to it." "Well, there's nothing I would like better than a voyage," said Aunt Christie; "but I think I would be a little frightened in a storm." "You would get used to it in time," I answered; "but it always remains very impressive." "I do not feel it more impressive than the utter stillness of a night here," Tom answered. "But it is a curious sensation, surely," said Mr. Brandon, "to wake and find yourself standing on your head in your berth, and your heart beating wrong end upwards!" "Ay!" said the old Aunt, "I wouldn't like that." "And then you become aware," he continued, "that, if you could see it, the bowsprit must be sticking straight up into the sky; in fact, that the ship is sitting up on end,' as old women say, and, like But while you're thinking a dog, is making a point at some star. about that, suddenly she shakes herself, and rolls so that you wonder she doesn't roll quite over; and then she gives a spring and appears to shie, so that you feel as if you must call out 'Wo, there!' as to a horse; and then, without more ado, she begins to root with her bowsprit into the very body of the sea, as if she never could be easy again unless she could find the bottom of it." "Well," said Aunt Christie, beguiled for the moment into a belief that this was a fair description of life at sea, "it's no wonder at all, then, that the poor Marchioness did not like it." "No," said Valentine to me; "but, as I said before, you'd better put on some of your best things, for I shall naturally wish you to look well.” They all, Tom included, looked surprised at this speech. I knew Prentice was at the bottom of it. "How engaging of you!" I answered, blandly. "You will have a clean pinafore on, yourself, no doubt; and I suppose you will expect me to give you a new rattle in return for your solicitude about me. I will, if I can get one for a penny, for I am rather tired of your present rattle." This ought to have been a wittier retort, for nothing I ever said was so much laughed at. They were always delighted when I managed to snub Valentine, but on this occasion Aunt Christie spoilt all by shaking her finger at him and saying, “Ay, laddie, you've met with your match now; you've met with your match." "That is exactly my own opinion," he replied, with emphasis; "if we didn't fight so over our Greek we might be taken for a pair of intellectual young turtle-doves." “You'd better look out," exclaimed Lou suddenly, and Valentine instantly put his arm through mine. 66 "Bless you," he said, we won't be parted, we'll go into exile together, like a pair of sleeve-links. Lay on, Macduff!" I do not suppose any special personal punishment had been intended by his brother; besides the window was shut, and as he had linked his arm into mine, nothing could be done, and he triumphed. "Well, I never expected to see ye let the Oubit get the better of ye so, St. George," exclaimed Aunt Christie; and again something was said about wasting the morning when it was so fine, and the walk to Wigfield was so beautiful. "Then, why can't you go without us, dear?" said Lou, addressing her brother. Mr. Brandon replied that it suited him to stay, and that he thought a little Greek would be good for his constitution. Accordingly he joined us; but though he could help Valentine far better than I could, he was not half so strict as I had been; and besides that, considering us both as his pupils, he bestowed as much pains on my translation as on his, and sometimes laughed outright when I read, declaring that to hear a girl cooing out that manly tongue was as droll as it was delightful. After luncheon we had to wait a little while for the proposed call, and when it had been paid, Mrs. Henfrey said Lou must go out with her in the carriage and pay a few visits. Aunt Christie and I both begged off, and as Liz found some fresh excuse for not going to Wigfield, we took a walk in the shrubbery instead, and in the wood; Mr. Brandon going with us and saying he should ride over to Wigfield at five o'clock, stay half-anhour, and get back again in time for dinner. He and Tom were both in highly genial humour; Tom and Liz, without caring in the least for one another, were getting quite familiar and intimate; she informing him what a comfort he was to them. "When you are not here, St. George is always getting away, either to see Miss Braithwaite or that blessed Dick! "What's Dick?" said Tom, pretending to be jealous; "he can't argue with Dick. What does he find in Dick's society, I should like to know? We were crashing down the slope at a good pace, for as it did not suit us to walk in even paths, they were taking us into the wood. Tom had Liz on his arm, and Mr. Brandon had Aunt Christie and me. "Is there anything else you would like to know?" said Aunt Christie, over her shoulder, to Tom. "Yes, I should like to know why you all call him St. George." "Why Dick's at the bottom of that too," said Liz. "No!" exclaimed both she and Mr. Brandon together, as we sat down and Aunt Christie lifted up her hand-a usual habit of hers when she was going to speak: "We cannot possibly stand that story," Liz went on; "you would make it last half-an-hour." Tom took out his watch. "How long would it take you to tell it?" he said, gravely, to Mr. Brandon. "I think I could polish it off in about forty seconds," he answered. "Let him try then,-let him try," Aunt Christie said; "I'm sure my stories are very interesting, and some of them a great deal more to your credit than any of your present goings on." "Now then," said Tom, with his watch still in his hand-" off!" "I never promised to tell it at all." "You've lost two seconds." "Well, then, my dear young father's crest was a dragon, and I had a mug which had been his-a silver mug-with this crest on it, and out of it I used to drink the small beer of my childhood. Dick, then about eight years old, once, when his parents came to lunch, and brought him with them, was taken up-stairs to dine with us in our nursery, and as I tilted up my mug to drink, he noticed that the dragon's tongue was out, and he managed to convey some notion to my mind that the circumstance was ignominious; he would have it that my dragon was putting out his tongue at me. So after wrangling all dinner-time about this, we fought under the table with fisticuffs. As soon as we had finished- How does the time get "Dick was remarkably pugnacious, and when we met-which was rather often-we always fought, either about that, or something else, till my mother found it out, and told me various stories about St. George, and I began to make a kind of hero of him in my mind. She comforted me as regarded the dragon's tongue, by telling me what a wicked beast he was. He did that to defy St. George, she "I'll take ten more seconds and finish it," said Liz; SO mamma |