"Oh, no! I beg your pardon," he said, with equal incoherency, and raising himself more deliberately. "Your brother put me here to rest, and I fell asleep, and did not hear you come in."

"Oh, don't! Pray, don't! I am so sorry I disturbed you. I did not know any one was here--"

"Pray, don't go! Can't I help you?"

Sydney recollected that in the general disorganisation pen, ink, and table were not easy to secure, and replied--

"It is the people in the village who are to dine here to-morrow. They must have tickets, or we shall have all manner of strangers. The stupid printer only sent the tickets yesterday, and the keeper is waiting for them. It would save time if you would read out the names while I mark the cards; but, please, lie still, or I shall go." And she came and arranged the cushions, which his movements had displaced, till he p.r.o.nounced himself quite comfortable.

Hardly a word pa.s.sed but "Smith James, two; Sennet Widow, one; Hacklebury Nicholas, three;" with a "yes" after each, till they came to "Hollis Richard."

"That's the boy's father," then said Sydney.

"Have you heard anything of him?" asked John.

"Oh, yes! his mother dragged him up to beg pardon, and return thanks, but mamma thought you would rather be spared the infliction."

"Besides that, they were not my due," said John.

"I never thought of the boy."

"If you did not, you saved him--twice!"

"A Newfoundland-dog instinct. But I am glad the little scamp is not the worse. I suppose he is to appear to-morrow?"

"Oh, yes! and the vicar begs no notice may be taken of him. He is really a very naughty little fellow, and if he is made a hero for getting himself and us so nearly drowned by birds'-nesting on a Sunday in the park, it will be perfectly demoralising!"

"You are as bad as your keeper!"

"I am only repeating the general voice," said Sydney, with a gleam upon her face, half-droll, half-tender. "Poor little man! I got him alone this morning, while his mother was pouring forth to mine, and I think he has a little more notion where thanks are due."

"I should like to see him," said John. "I'll try not to demoralise him; but he has given me some happy moments."

The voice was low, and Sydney blushed as she laughed and said--

"That's like Babie, saying it was delightful."

"She is quite right as far as I am concerned."

The hue on Sydney's cheek deepened excessively, as she said--

"Is George Hollis next?"

They went on steadily after that, and Willis was not kept long waiting.

Then came the whirl of arrivals, Cecil with his Hampton cousins, Sir James Evelyn and Armine, Jessie and her General, and the Kenminster party. Caroline found herself in great request as general confidante, adviser, and medium as being familiar with all parties, and it was evidently a great comfort to her sister-in-law to find some one there to answer questions and give her the carte-du-pays. Outwardly, she was all the Serene Highness, a majestic matron, overshadowing everybody, not talkative, but doing her part with dignity, in great part the outcome of shyness, but rather formidable to simple-minded Mrs. Evelyn.

She heard of John's accident with equanimity amazing to her hostess, but befitting the parent of six sons who were always knocking themselves about. Indeed, John was too well launched ever to occupy much of her thoughts. Her pride was in her big Robert, and her joy in her little Harry, and her care for whichever intermediate one needed it most. This one at the moment was of course pretty, frightened, blushing Esther, who was moving about in one maze and dazzle of shyness and strangeness, hardly daring to raise her eyes, but fortunately graceful enough to look her part well in the midst of her terrors. Such continual mistakes between her and Eleanor were made, that Cecil was advised to take care that he had the right bride; but Ellie, though so like her sister outwardly, was of a very different nature, neither shy nor timid, but of the st.u.r.dy Friar texture.

She was very unhappy at the loss of her sister, and had an odd little conversation with Babie, who showed her to her room, while the rest of the world made much of the bride.

"Ellie, the finery and flummery is to be done in Aunt Ellen's dressing-room," explained Babie; "but Essie is to sleep here with you to-night."

Poor Ellie! her lip quivered at the thought that it was for the last time, and she said, bluntly--

"I didn't want to have come! I hate it all!"

"It can't be helped," said Barbara.

"I can't think how you and Aunt Carey could give in to it!"

"It was the real article, and no mistake," said Babie.

"Yes; she is as silly about him as possible. A mere fine gentleman! Poor Bobus has more stuff in him than a dozen of him!"

"He is a real, honest, good fellow," said Babie. "I'm sorry for Bobus, but I've known Cecil almost all my life, and I can't have him abused.

I do really believe that Essie will be happier with a simple-hearted fellow like him, than with a clever man like Bobus, who has places in his mind she could never reach up to, and lucky for her too," half whispered Babie at the end.

"I thought you would have cared more for your own brother."

"Remember, they all said it would have been wrong. Besides, Cecil has been always like my brother. You will like him when you know him."

"I can't bear fine folks."

"They are anything but fine!" cried Babie indignantly.

"They can't help it. That way of Lord Fordham's, high-breeding I suppose you call it, just makes me wild. I hate it!"

"Poor Ellie. You'll have to get over it, for Essie's sake."

"No, I shan't. It is really losing her, as much as Jessie--"

"Jessie looks worn."

"No wonder. Jessie was a goose. Mamma told her to marry that old man, and she just did it because she was told, and now he is always ordering her about, and worries and fidgets about everything in the house. I wish one's sisters would have more sense and not marry."

Which sentiment poor Ellie uttered just as Sydney was entering by an unexpected open door into the next room, and she observed, "Exactly! It is the only consolation for not having a sister that she can't go and marry! O Ellie, I am so sorry for you."

This somewhat softened Ellie, and she was restored to a pitch of endurance by the time Essie was escorted into the room by both the mothers.

That polished courtesy of Fordham's which Ellie so much disliked had quite won the heart of her mother, who, having viewed him from a distance as an obstacle in Esther's way, now underwent a revulsion of feeling, and when he treated her with marked distinction, and her daughter with brotherly kindness, was filled with mingled grat.i.tude, admiration and compunction.

When, after dinner, Fordham had succeeded in rousing his uncle and the other two old soldiers out of a discussion on promotion in the army, and getting them into the drawing-room, the Colonel came and sat down by his "good little sister" to confide to her, under cover of Sydney's music, that he was very glad his pretty Essie had chosen a younger man than her elder sister's husband.

"Very opinionated is Hood!" he said, shaking his head. "Stuck out against Sir James and me in a perfectly preposterous way."

Caroline was not prepossessed in favour of General Hood, either by his conversation with herself at dinner, or by the startled way in which Jessie sat upright and put on her gloves as soon as he came in; but she did not wish to discuss him with the Colonel, and asked whether John had gone to bed.

"Is he not here? I thought he had come in with the young ones? No? then he must have gone to bed. Could Armine or any of them show me the way to his room?--for I should like to know how the boy really is."