"O yes," said she, nearly whispering "only take care. It is taboo there,"--and she made a sign with her hand towards Mrs. Langford, "and don't frighten Aunt Mary about Fred. O it is too late, Carey's doing the deed as fast as he can."

Carey was asking Fred whether he had ever skated, or could skate, and Fred was giving an account of his exploits in that line at school, hoping it might prove to his mother that he might be trusted to take care of himself since he had dared the danger before. In vain: the alarmed expression had come over her face, as she asked Alexander whether his father had looked at the ice.

"No," said Alex, "but it is perfectly safe. I tried it this morning, and it is as firm as this marble chimney-piece."

"He is pretty well to be trusted," said his grandfather, "more especially as it would be difficult to get drowned there."

"I would give a shilling to anyone who could drown himself there," said Alex.

"The travelling man did," exclaimed at once Carey, John, and Richard.

"Don't they come in just like the Greek chorus?" said Beatrice, in a whisper to Fred, who gave a little laugh, but was too anxious to attend to her.

"I thought he was drowned in the river," said Alex.

"No, it was in the deep pool under the weeping willow, where the duckweed grows so rank in summer," said Carey.

Uncle Geoffrey laughed. "I am sorry to interfere with your romantic embellishments, Carey, or with the credit of your beloved pond, since you are determined not to leave it behindhand with its neighbours."

"I always thought it was there," said the boy.

"And thought wrong; the poor man was found in the river two miles off."

"I always heard it was at Knight's Pool," repeated Carey.

"I do not know what you may have heard," said Uncle Geoffrey; "but as it happened a good while before you were born, I think you had better not argue the point."

"Grandpapa," persisted Carey, "was it not in Knight's Pool?"

"Certainly not," was the answer drily given.

"Well," continued Carey, "I am sure you might drown yourself there."

"Rather than own yourself mistaken," said Uncle Geoffrey.

"Carey, Carey, I hate contradiction," said grandmamma, rising and rustling past where he stood with a most absurd, dogged, unconvinced face. "Take your arm off the mantelpiece, let that china cup alone, and stand like a gentleman. Do!"

"All in vain!" said Beatrice. "To the end of his life he will maintain that Knight's Pool drowned the travelling man!"

"Well, never mind," said John, impatiently, "are we coming to skate this morning or are we not?"

"I really wish," said Aunt Mary, as if she could not help it, "without distrusting either old Knight's Pool or your judgment, Alexander, that you would ask some one to look at it."

"I should like just to run down and see the fun," said Uncle Geoffrey, thus setting all parties at rest for the moment. The two girls ran joyfully up to put on their bonnets, as Henrietta wished to see, Beatrice to join in, the sport. At that instant Mrs. Langford asked her son Geoffrey to remove some obstacle which hindered the comfortable shutting of the door, and though a servant might just as well have done it, he readily complied, according to his constant habit of making all else give way to her, replying to the discomfited looks of the boys, "I shall be ready by the time the young ladies come down."

So he was, long before Henrietta was ready, and just as she and Beatrice appeared on the stairs, Atkins was carrying across the hall what the boys looked at with glances of dismay, namely, the post-bag. Knight Sutton, being small and remote, did not possess a post-office, but a messenger came from Allonfield for the letters on every day except Sunday, and returned again in the s.p.a.ce of an hour. A very inconvenient arrangement, as everyone had said for the last twenty years, and might probably say for twenty years more.

As usual, more than half the contents were for G. Langford, Esq., and Fred's face grew longer and longer as he saw the closely-written business-like sheets.

"Fred, my poor fellow," said his uncle, looking up, "I am sorry for you, but one or two must be answered by this day's post. I will not be longer than I can help."

"Then do let us come on," exclaimed the chorus.

"Come, Queenie," added Alex.

She delayed, however, saying, "Can I do any good, papa?"

"Thank you, let me see. I do not like to stop you, but it would save time if you could just copy a letter."

"O thank you, pray let me," said Beatrice, delighted. "Go on, Henrietta, I shall soon come."

Henrietta would have waited, but she saw a chance of speaking to her brother, which she did not like to lose.

Her mother had taken advantage of the various conversations going on in the hall, to draw her son aside, saying, "Freddy, I believe you think me very troublesome, but do let me entreat of you not to venture on the ice till one of your uncles has said it is safe."

"Uncle Roger trusts Alex," said Fred.

"Yes, but he lets all those boys take their chance, and a number of you together are likely to be careless, and I know there used to be dangerous places in that pond. I will not detain you, my dear," added she, as the others were preparing to start, "only I beg you will not attempt to skate till your uncle comes."

"Very well," said Frederick, in a tone of as much annoyance as ever he showed his mother, and with little suspicion how much it cost her not to set her mind at rest by exacting a promise from him. This she had resolutely forborne to do in cases like the present, from his earliest days, and she had her reward in the implicit reliance she could place on his word when once given. And now, sighing that it had not been voluntarily offered, she went to her sofa, to struggle and reason in vain with her fears, and start at each approaching step, lest it should bring the tidings of some fatal accident, all the time blaming herself for the entreaties which might, as she dreaded, place him in peril of disobedience.

In a few moments Mr. Geoffrey Langford was sitting in the great red leathern chair in the study, writing as fast as his fingers would move, apparently without a moment for thought, though he might have said, like the great painter, that what seemed the work of half an hour, was in fact the labour of years. His daughter, her bonnet by her side, sat opposite to him, writing with almost equal rapidity, and supremely happy, for to the credit of our little Queen Bee let it be spoken, that no talk with Henrietta, no walk with grandpapa, no new exciting tale, no, not even a flirtation with Fred and Alex, one or both, was equal in her estimation to the pleasure and honour of helping papa, even though it was copying a dry legal opinion, instead of gliding about on the smooth hard ice, in the bright winter morning's sunshine.

The two pens maintained a duet of diligent scratching for some twenty or five and twenty minutes without intermission, but at last Beatrice looked up, and without speaking, held up her sheet.

"Already? Thank you, my little clerk, I could think it was mamma. Now then, off to the skating. My compliments to Fred, and tell him I feel for him, and will not keep him waiting longer than I can avoid:" and muttering a resumption of his last sentence, on went the lawyer's indefatigable pen; and away flew the merry little Busy Bee, bounding off with her droll, tripping, elastic, short-stepped run, which suited so well with her little alert figure, and her dress, a small plain black velvet bonnet, a tight black velvet "jacket," as she called it, and a brown silk dress, with narrow yellow stripes (chosen chiefly in joke, because it was the colour of a bee), not a bit of superfluous shawl, boa, or ribbon about her, but all close and compact, fit for the diversion which she was eager to enjoy. The only girl among so many boys, she had learnt to share in many of their sports, and one of the prime favourites was skating, a diversion which owes as much of its charm to the caprices of its patron Jack Frost, as to the degree of skill which it requires.

She arrived at the stile leading to "Knight's Portion," as it was called, and a very barren portion must the poor Knight have possessed if it was all his property. It was a sloping chalky field or rather corner of a down, covered with very short gra.s.s and thistles, which defied all the attacks of Uncle Roger and his sheep. On one side was a sort of precipice, where the chalk had been dug away, and a rather extensive old chalk pit formed a tolerable pond, by the a.s.sistance of the ditch at the foot of a hedge. On the gla.s.sy surface already marked by many a sharply traced circular line, the Sutton Leigh boys were careering, the younger ones with those extraordinary bends, twists, and contortions to which the unskilful are driven in order to preserve their balance. Frederick and Henrietta stood on the brink, neither of them looking particularly cheerful; but both turned gladly at the sight of the Busy Bee, and came to meet her with eager inquiries for her papa.

She was a very welcome sight to both, especially Henrietta, who had from the first felt almost out of place alone with all those boys, and who hoped that she would be some comfort to poor Fred, who had been entertaining her with every variety of grumbling for the last half-hour, and perversely refusing to walk out of sight of the forbidden pleasure, or to talk of anything else. Such a conversation as she was wishing for was impossible whilst he was constantly calling out to the others, and exclaiming at their adventures, and in the intervals lamenting his own hard fate, scolding her for her slowness in dressing, which had occasioned the delay, and magnifying the loss of his pleasure, perhaps in a sort of secret hope that the temptation would so far increase as to form in his eyes an excuse for yielding to it. Seldom had he shown himself so unamiable towards her, and with great relief and satisfaction she beheld her cousin descending the steep slippery path from the height above, and while the cloud began to lighten on his brow, she thought to herself, "It will be all right now, he is always happy with Busy Bee!"

So he might have been had Beatrice been sufficiently unselfish for once to use her influence in the right direction, and surrender an amus.e.m.e.nt for the sake of another; but to give up or defer such a pleasure as skating with Alex never entered her mind, though a moment's reflection might have shown her how much more annoying the privation would be rendered by the sight of a girl fearlessly enjoying the sport from which he was debarred. It would, perhaps, be judging too hardly to reckon against her as a fault that her grandmamma could not bear to hear of anything so "boyish," and had long ago entreated her to be more like a young lady. There was no positive order in this case, and her papa and mamma did not object. So she eagerly answered Alexander's summons, fastened on her skates, and soon was gliding merrily on the surface of the Knight's Pool, while her cousins watched her dexterity with surprise and interest; but soon Fred once more grew gloomy, sighed, groaned, looked at his watch, and recommenced his complaints. At first she had occupation enough in attending to her own security to bestow any attention on other things, but in less than a quarter of an hour, she began to feel at her ease, and her spirits rising to the pitch where consideration is lost, she "could not help," in her own phrase, laughing at the disconsolate Fred.

"How woebegone he looks!" said she, as she whisked past, "but never mind, Fred, the post must go some time or other."

"It must be gone," said Fred. "I am sure we have been here above an hour!"

"Henrietta looks blue with cold, like an old hen obliged to follow her ducklings to the water!" observed Beatrice, again gliding near, and in the midst of her next circular sweep she chanted--

"Although their feet are pointed, and my feet are round, Pray, is that any reason why I should be drowned?"

It was a great aggravation of Fred's calamities to be obliged to laugh, nor were matters mended by the sight of the party now advancing from the house, Jessie Carey, with three of the lesser boys.

"What news of Uncle Geoffrey?"

"I did not see him," said Jessie: "I think he was in the study, Uncle Roger went to him there."