Drake signed the paper absently, with a scrawl of the pen which d.i.c.k brought him, and d.i.c.k, glancing at the signature mechanically, said:

"Well, that's a rum way of writing 'Vernon'!"

Drake looked up from cutting the string of the small box, and frowned slightly.

"Give it me back, please," he said, rather sharply. "It isn't fair to write so indistinctly."

d.i.c.k handed the receipt form back, and Drake ran his pen quickly through the "Selbie" which he had scrawled unthinkingly, and wrote Drake Vernon in its place.

d.i.c.k took the altered paper unsuspectingly to the carrier.

"So kind of you to trouble, Mr. Vernon!" said Mrs. Lorton. "As if it mattered how you wrote! My poor father used to say that only the illiterate were careful of their handwriting, and that illegible caligraphy--it is caligraphy, is it not?--was a sign of genius."

"Then I must be one of the greatest geniuses that ever lived," said Drake.

"And I'm another--if indifferent spelling is also a sign," said d.i.c.k cheerfully; "and Nell must cap us both, for she can neither write nor spell; few girls can," he added calmly. "Tobacco, Mr. Vernon?" nodding at the box.

By this time Drake had got its wrapper off and revealed a jewel case. He handed it to Mrs. Lorton with the slight awkwardness of a man giving a present.

"Here's a little thing I hope you will accept, Mrs. Lorton," he said.

"For me!" she exclaimed, bridling, and raising her brows with juvenile archness. "Are you sure it's for me? Now, shall I guess----"

"Oh, no, you don't, mamma," said d.i.c.k emphatically. "I'll open it if you can't manage it. Oh, I say!" he exclaimed, as Mrs. Lorton opened the case, and the sparkle of diamonds was emitted.

Mrs. Lorton echoed his exclamation, and her face flushed with all a woman's delight as she gazed at the diamond bracelet reposing on its bed of white plush.

"Really----My dear Mr. Vernon!" she gasped. "How--how truly magnificent!

But surely not for me--for me!"

He was beginning to get, if not uncomfortable, a little bored, with a man's hatred of fuss.

"I'm afraid there's not much magnificence about it," he said, rather shortly. "I hope you like the pattern, style, or whatever you call it. I had to risk it, not being there to choose. And there's a gun in that case, d.i.c.k."

d.i.c.k made an indecent grab for the larger parcel, and, tearing off the wrapper, opened the thick leather case and took out a costly gun.

"And a Greener!" he exclaimed. "A Greener! I say, you know, sir----"

He laughed excitedly, his face flushed with delight, as he carried the gun to the window.

"Is it not perfect, simply perfect, Eleanor?" said Mrs. Lorton, holding out her arm with the bracelet on her wrist. "Really, I don't think you could have chosen a handsomer one, Mr. Vernon, if you had gone to London to do so."

"I am glad you are pleased with it," he said simply.

"Pleased? It is perfect! Eleanor, haven't you a word to say? No; I imagine you are too overwhelmed for words," said Mrs. Lorton, with a kind of cackle.

"It is very beautiful, mamma," she said gravely; and her face, as she leaned over the thing, was grave also.

Drake looked at her as he rose, and understood the look and the tone of her voice, and was glad that he had resisted the almost irresistible temptation to order a somewhat similar present for her.

"I say, sir, you must get your gun down, and we must go for some rabbits," said d.i.c.k eagerly. "And I can get a day or two's shooting over the Maltby land as soon as the season opens. I'm sure they'd give it me."

"That's tempting, d.i.c.k," said Drake; "and it adds another cause to my regret that I am leaving to-morrow."

"Leaving to-morrow!" exclaimed Mrs. Lorton, with a gasp. "Surely not!

You are not thinking, dreaming of going, my dear Mr. Vernon?"

"It's very good of you," he said, picking up his cap and nearing the door. "But I couldn't stay forever, you know. I've trespa.s.sed on your hospitality too much already."

"Oh, I say, you know!" expostulated d.i.c.k, in a deeply aggrieved tone. "I say, Nell, do you hear that? Mr. Vernon's going!"

"Miss Nell knows that I have been 'going' for some days past, only that I haven't been able to tear myself away. It's nearly five, Miss Nell, and we ordered the boat for half-past four, you know," he added, in a matter-of-fact way.

She rose and ran out of the room for her jacket and tam-o'-shanter, and they went out, leaving Mrs. Lorton and d.i.c.k still gloating over their presents.

CHAPTER IX.

Nell walked rapidly and talking quickly as they went down to the jetty, and it was not until the _Annie Laurie_ was slipping out into the bay that she grew silent and thoughtful. She sat in the stern with her arm over the tiller, her eyes cast down, her face grave; and Drake, feeling uncomfortable, said at last:

"Might one offer a penny for your thoughts, Miss Nell?"

She looked up and met the challenge with a sweet seriousness.

"I was thinking of something that you told me the other day--when we were riding," she said.

"I've told you so much----" "And so little!" he added mentally.

"You said that you had been unlucky, that you had lost a great deal of money lately," she said, in a low voice.

He nodded.

"Yes; I think I did. It's true unfortunately; but it doesn't much matter."

"Does it not?" she asked. "Why did you give mamma so costly a present?

Oh, please don't deny it. I don't know very much about diamonds, but I know that that bracelet must have cost a great deal of money."

"Not really," he said, with affected carelessness. "Diamonds are very cheap now; they find 'em by the bucketful in the Cape, you know."

She looked at him with grave reproach.

"You are trying to belittle it," she said; "but, indeed, I am not deceived. And the gun, too! That must have been very expensive. Why--did you spend so much?"

He began to feel irritated.