"It has been capital! Capital!" said Mrs. Glyn Williams. "One of the best entertainments we've ever had at the Inst.i.tute! Didn't Babbie look sweet as 'Sophia'? We must have some more tableaux another time. Gwen, you ought to have been in too! The Castletons were splendid! Such a number of nice young people here! We ought to have a little dance. They must all come up to The Warren to-morrow evening, and we'll clear the drawing-room.

I'll telephone to Dr. Tremayne and say I'm keeping you four till Friday. Your dresses? Oh, we'll send over for them. I'm sure your Mother won't mind your staying!"

There was no possibility of refusal, for Mrs. Glyn Williams had quite settled the matter, and invited the Castletons and the Macleods and the Colvilles and several other people on the spot. The Ramsays, who had made plans of their own for the following evening, felt a little caught, especially as Bevis looked glum and reproachful.

"How _could_ you?" he said to Mavis in an agonized whisper.

"How could I help it?"

"We were shot sitting," murmured Merle. "Cheer up, Bevis! A dance is a dance, anyway. I hope I haven't spoilt Clive's Etons for him!"

Mrs. Glyn Williams really meant to be very kind and to give the young people pleasure, and if Bevis did not entirely appreciate her hospitality it was no doubt his own fault. The fact was that the snubs which he had received as Bevis Hunter still rankled, and though as Bevis Talland he was on a very different footing, he found it difficult entirely to forget all that had gone before.

"I was exactly the same as I am now, but no one would notice me till I came into the estate--except you and Merle!" he said once rather bitterly to Mavis. "I sometimes feel their friendship is hardly worth having!"

"It's the way of the world, and you have to take people just as they are," she replied. "It's no use keeping up ill-feeling, Bevis. If they hold out the olive branch, it's more gracious to accept it, isn't it?"

"Oh, I'll behave myself! But all the same, I discriminate between my old friends and my new acquaintances; I'd rather not call them by the name of friends!"

There were great preparations next day at The Warren. The furniture was carried out of the drawing-room, the parquet floor was polished, and Chinese lanterns were hung up in the conservatory, and the cook was busy preparing light refreshments. It was a pretty house for a dance, and looked very gay and festive with its Christmas decorations of holly and ivy, and its blazing fire of logs in the hall. Mavis's and Merle's party dresses duly arrived, and they made careful toilets, coming downstairs shyly, to feel a little in the shade by the side of Gwen the magnificent, who, alack! was trying to copy the up-to-date manners of some of her new school friends, with rather unhappy results. Perhaps kind little Babbie noticed the Ramsays' embarra.s.sment, for she went to them at once to give them their programmes.

"How nice you look!" she said. "Isn't it always a horrid time, just when every one is arriving? It's ever so much nicer when the first dance has started!"

There were a great many people present whom Mavis and Merle did not know.

Some of these were introduced by Tudor, and asked for dances, and very soon the sisters were separated and gliding over the polished floor with partners.

Mrs. Glyn Williams, having welcomed the young guests, retired to a sofa for a chat with some other dowagers, and left them to fill up their programmes as they liked. There were far more ladies present than gentlemen, so it was a case of girls dancing with one another. Merle readily whisked away with Tattie, or Nan, or Lizzie, but shy Mavis, after the first two-step, stood in a corner unnoticed. Gwen was enjoying herself very much with the pick of the partners, Beata and Romola floated by together, and Clive was carefully performing his steps in company with a much amused married lady. Mavis acted wallflower for several dances, feeling considerably out of it, till Bevis's voice sounded suddenly in her ear.

"Why, here you are! I've been looking for you everywhere! How many dances can you give me? I've kept my programme as free as I could till I found you. I thought the pixies must have spirited you away! What did you say?

I ought to ask Gwen? It isn't necessary in the least. You know I'm a duffer at it, and I should probably tread on her toes and she'd hate me for evermore. May I have these four?"

"Give half to Merle!"

"Soeurette's perfectly happy with the kids! If you won't let me have them I won't dance at all. I'll hide in the conservatory, or run away into the garden. You promised to be my teacher!"

"So I will, but I feel I mustn't monopolise you. Oh, dear! Well, if you've written them down I suppose it will have to be!"

"May I have the pleasure, Miss Ramsay?" twinkled Bevis, offering his arm.

"Thanks very much! You may!" laughed Mavis.

"I'm always glad when I get my own way!" chuckled Bevis, as they started a valse.

Three of the dances which Bevis had appropriated on Mavis's programme came in succession, and as their steps went well together they thoroughly enjoyed themselves. At the close of the third they were walking into the hall to get lemonade when Mrs. Glyn Williams smilingly stopped them.

"I want to introduce you to some fresh partners. There are plenty of people anxious to know you!" she said to Bevis archly. Then, tapping Mavis with her fan, she continued, laughing, "Naughty girl! You mustn't keep him _all_ to yourself! I really _can't!_ allow it!"

Poor Mavis blushed magenta, and stood aside while her hostess whisked the unwilling Bevis away and remorselessly fixed up the rest of his programme for him. She did not attempt to find a partner for Mavis, who was too overwhelmed with confusion to care to dance even with Lizzie Colville, and who backed towards the piano and began to turn over the music.

Inwardly Mavis was raging, though she had sufficient pride to preserve an outward calm.

"If there's anything here you know I'd be grateful if you could play it and give me a rest, my hands are so stiff," said Mrs. Colville, who had volunteered to act as pianist for the evening.

"I'll try with pleasure!" answered Mavis, taking her place.

She was glad to have an excuse for not dancing. She only wished she could have run away from The Warren and gone straight home and poured out her troubles to her mother. The Glyn Williams had cut Bevis in the old days and poured scorn on the Ramsays for knowing him, and it seemed too bad that their present hospitality to him should still be a subject for blame. Mavis's pride kept her at the piano all the rest of the evening.

She was a good reader, and a.s.sured Mrs. Colville that she liked playing.

She shook her head when Bevis came for his fourth dance.

"_Please_ get another partner! I'm busy here! Mrs. Glyn Williams will find you somebody!"

Whereupon Bevis, muttering very uncomplimentary remarks about his hostess under his breath, deliberately pa.s.sed by several eligible wallflowers, chose out the youngest child in the room, and led her off in a valse.

Merle, who was still an absolute schoolgirl and revelled in anything in the nature of a party, enjoyed her evening supremely. Mavis was very glad when it was all over and she was quiet in bed. Some new element seemed to have entered to-night into her old happy world and to have rubbed the bloom off her innocent friendship with Bevis.

"It was so jolly in the old days when we hunted for primroses and had picnics in Blackthorn Bower!" she thought. "It's not ourselves who have changed, but other people who won't allow us to be the same. Why couldn't things go on as they were? If this is society I don't like it! Oh, dear!

I wish we could always stay exactly as we are and never grow up at all!"

CHAPTER X

The Mumps

When the Christmas holidays were over, a very important decision was arrived at with regard to Clive. For many reasons his parents considered his preparatory school too strenuous for him, and, as he had considerably outgrown his strength, it was arranged to allow him to miss the spring term and to stay at Durracombe until Easter. He was to go every morning to the Vicarage for private lessons from Mr. Carey, and he was to be out of doors as much as possible, drink plenty of milk, and try, as his grandfather expressed it, to 'put on flesh.' Master Clive himself was only too well content to have what he justly considered a continuation of his holidays. He did not mean to be too clever over his lessons at the Vicarage, and, indeed, he planned to make a little work go a long way.

Being out of doors as much as possible suited him exactly. He strutted about Durracombe, with a rolling naval walk, making friends with everybody, and telling them he had quite determined to go to sea and become an Admiral. He went out motoring with his grandfather or Dr.

Ramsay, and he spent a considerable portion of time with Tom, the old gardener, who was long-suffering in many ways, though roused to wrath by any injury to his young bedding-out plants. Mrs. Ramsay 'mothered' Clive, feeling it was some return for the kindness which Uncle David had shown to her own girls. She grew fond of the young scapegrace and covered his escapades as far as possible, so as not to alarm nervous Aunt Nellie, who would have been much perturbed at some of her grandson's reckless performances.

There was no harm about Clive; he was simply a young, restless, fast- growing boy, who constantly wanted fresh outlets for his energies. He loved to tease his cousins, but met his match in Merle, who generally turned the tables and carried the war into the enemy's camp. When they were not sparring or playing jokes upon one another, the two were firm allies. Merle had always wished for a brother, and lively Clive was a companion after her own heart. Mrs. Ramsay, indeed, complained that her younger daughter was becoming an utter tomboy, but she was glad for the two to be together, as she could trust Merle not to allow her cousin to go too far, and to keep him from endangering either his own limbs or the safety and comfort of other people.

The Spring term had advanced only a few weeks when a most untoward thing happened. Merle got mumps! How she picked them up n.o.body knew, but, as mother said, in a doctor's house you may always be prepared to catch anything, and it was a marvel the children had had so few complaints.

Merle was not really very ill, but her face and neck were swollen and painful, and, worst of all, she was considered in a highly infectious condition and was carefully isolated in a top bedroom. Neither Mavis nor Clive had had mumps, and it was hoped they might escape, though as they had been with Merle the germs might still be incubating. Mavis was, of course, not allowed to go to 'The Moorings,' and Clive was debarred from his lessons at The Vicarage, and they had to preserve a species of quarantine, equally trying to them both, for at Dr. Tremayne's suggestion Mavis turned temporary governess to Clive and coached him in several subjects in which he was deficient. The young rascal, highly aggrieved at this unexpected tuition, took liberties with his gentle cousin which he would not have dared to take with Mr. Carey, and extracted as much fun as possible from his studies. Mavis was quite sure he made mistakes on purpose, and pretended to be stupid in order to reduce the standard of what was required, but the main object was to keep him quiet and out of mischief, and her teaching served that end at any rate.

"I wouldn't be a mistress in a boys' preparatory school if they offered me a thousand a year!" she told Mother. "I'd rather clean doorsteps, or sew b.u.t.tons on shirts at a farthing a dozen, or sell watercress, or wash dishes in a restaurant!"

"Nonsense! It's not so bad as all that, surely!" laughed Mrs. Ramsay.

"If you knew how the little wretch rags me! I only wish it was Merle who had to teach him and that I had the mumps instead. It must be nice and quite comfortable by the fire upstairs!"

Merle, however, did not at all appreciate the privilege of being ill and confined to one room. She was not so fond of indoor amus.e.m.e.nts as her sister, and soon tired of reading and drawing and games of patience. Her great grievance was that she was left so much alone. Mrs. Ramsay had to attend to Aunt Nellie, to answer the telephone, and to interview patients who came while the doctors were out and to take their messages, as well as to do the housekeeping, so she was kept constantly busy and had not much time to sit upstairs with Merle. Dr. Tremayne and her father paid her flying visits, but these were too short to content her.

"What's five minutes out of a long day?" she asked. "It's too bad! When Mavis used to have bronchitis we all almost lived in her bedroom. n.o.body makes the least fuss about _me_! You don't even look decently sorry or very sympathetic! You come smiling in as if mumps were a sort of joke.

It isn't a smiling matter to me, I can tell you. I'm fed up with them!"

"Poor old lady! It's a shame to laugh at your big face! Shall I cry instead?" said Father.

"It wouldn't seem quite so heartless!" retorted his indignant patient.

Next day Merle received a letter, which was pushed under the door. It was all in rhyme, and as it was in Dr. Ramsay's handwriting she concluded that her father must have sat up late the night before courting the muse of poetry. His verses ran as follows: