She had been a handsome woman when Richard Mayne married her, but a certain deepening of tints and broadening of contour had not improved the mistress of Longmead. Her husband was a decided contrast: he was a small, wiry man, with sharp features that expressed a great deal of shrewdness. d.i.c.k had got his sandy hair; but Richard Mayne the elder had not his son's honest, kindly eyes. Mr. Mayne's were small and twinkling; he had a way of looking at people between his half-closed lids, in a manner half sharp and half jocular.

He was not vulgar, far from it; but he had a homely air about him that spoke of the self-made man. He was rather fond of telling people that his father had been in trade in a small way and that he himself had been the sole architect of his fortune. "Look at d.i.c.k," he would say; "he would never have a penny, that fellow, unless I made it for him: he has come into the world to find his bread ready b.u.t.tered. I had to be content with a crust as I could earn it. The lad's a cut above us both, though he has the good taste to try and hide it."

This sagacious speech was very true. d.i.c.k would never have succeeded as a business man; he was too full of crotchets and speculations to be content to run in narrow grooves. The notion of money-making was abhorrent to him; the idea of a city life, with its hard rubs and drudgery, was utterly distasteful to him. "One would have to mix with such a lot of cads," he would say. "English, pure and undefiled, is not always spoken. If I must work, I would rather have a turn at law or divinity; the three old women with the eye between them knows which."

It could not be denied that d.i.c.k winced a little at his father's homely speeches; but in his heart he was both proud and fond of him, and was given to a.s.sert to a few of his closest friends "that, take it all in all, and looking at other fellows' fathers, he was a rattling good sort, and no mistake."

When Mrs. Challoner had entered her little protest against her daughter's acceptance of the invitation, Mrs. Mayne had risen and kissed her with some effusion as she took her leave.

"It is so nice of you to say this to me; of course I should have been pleased, delighted to have had Nan with us" (oh, Mrs. Mayne, fie for shame! when you want your boy to yourself), "but all the same I think you are so wise."

"Poor child! I am afraid I am refusing her a great treat," returned Mrs. Challoner, in a tone of regret. It was the first time since her husband's death that she had ever decided anything without reference to her daughters; but for once her maternal fears were up in arms, and drove her to sudden resolution.

"Yes, but, as you observed, it would throw them so entirely together; and d.i.c.k is so young. Richard was only saying the other night that he hoped the boy would not fancy himself in love for the next two years, as he did not approve of such early engagements."

"Neither do I," returned Mrs. Challoner, quickly. "Nothing would annoy me more than for one of my daughters to entangle herself with so young a man. We know the world too well for that, Mrs. Mayne. Why, d.i.c.k may fall in and out of love half a dozen times before he really makes up his mind."

"Ah, that is what Richard says," returned d.i.c.k's mother, with a sigh; in her heart she was not quite of her husband's opinion. She remembered how that long waiting wasted her own youth,--waiting for what? For comforts that she would gladly have done without,--for a well-furnished house, when she would have lived happily in the poorest lodging with the Richard Mayne who had won her heart,--for whom she would have toiled and slaved with the self-abnegating devotion of a loving woman; only he feared to have it so.

"'When poverty enters the door, love flies out of the window:' we had better make up our minds to wait, Bessie. I can better work in single than double harness just now." That was what he said to her, and Bessie waited,--not till she grew thin, but stout, and the spirit of her youth was gone; and it was a sober, middle-aged woman who took possession of the long-expected home.

Mrs. Mayne loved her husband, but during that tedious engagement her ardor had a little cooled, and it may be doubted whether the younger Richard was not dearer to her than his father; which was ungrateful, to say the least of it, as Mr. Mayne doted on his comely wife, and thought Bessie as handsome now as in the days when she came out smiling to welcome him, a slim young creature with youthful roses in her cheeks.

From this brief conversation it may be seen that none of the elders quite approved of this budding affection. Mrs. Challoner, who belonged to a good old family, found it hard to forgive the Maynes'

lowliness of birth; and though she liked d.i.c.k, she thought Nan could do better for herself. Mr. Mayne pooh-poohed the whole thing so entirely that the women could only speak of it among themselves.

"d.i.c.k is a clever fellow; he ought to marry money," he would say. "I am not a millionaire, and a little more would be acceptable;" and though he was always kind to Nan and her sisters, he was forever dealing sly hits at her. "Phillis has the brains of the family," he would say: "that is the girl for my money. I call her a vast deal better looking than Nan, though people make such a fuss about the other one;" a speech he was never tired of repeating in his son's presence, and at which d.i.c.k snapped his fingers metaphorically and said nothing.

When d.i.c.k wished that one of them were going to Switzerland, Nan sighed furtively. d.i.c.k was going away for three months, for the remainder of the long vacation. After next week they would not see him until Christmas,--nearly six months. A sense of dreariness, as new as it was strange, swept momentarily over Nan as she pondered this. The summer months would be grievously clouded. d.i.c.k had been the moving spirit of all the fun; the tennis-parties, the pleasant dawdling afternoons, would lose their zest when he was away.

She remembered how persistently he had haunted their footsteps. When they paid visits to the Manor House, or Gardenhurst, or Fitzroy Lodge, d.i.c.k was sure to put in an appearance. People had nicknamed him the "Challoners' Squire;" but now Nan must go squireless for the rest of the summer, unless she took compa.s.sion on Stanley Parker, or that dreadful chatterbox his cousin.

The male population was somewhat spa.r.s.e at Oldfield. There were a few Eton boys, and one or two in that delightful transition age when youth is most bashful and uninteresting,--a sort of unfledged manhood, when the smooth boyish cheek contradicts the deepened ba.s.s of the voice,--an age that has not ceased to blush, and which is full of aggravating idosyncrasies and unexpected angles.

To be sure, Lord Fitzroy was a splendid specimen of a young guardsman, but he had lately taken to himself a wife; and Sir Alfred Mostyn, who was also somewhat attractive and a very pleasant fellow, and unattached at present, had a tiresome habit of rushing off to Norway, or St. Petersburg, or Niagara, or the Rocky Mountains, for what he termed sport, or a lark.

"It seems we are very stupid this evening," observed Phillis for d.i.c.k had waxed almost as silent as Nan. "I think the mother must nearly have finished her nap, so I propose we go back and have some tea;"

and, as Nan languidly acquiesced they turned their faces towards the village again, Dulce still holding firmly to Nan's arm. By and by d.i.c.k struck out in a fresh direction.

"I say, don't you wish we could have last week over again?"

"Yes! oh, yes! was it not too delicious?" from the three girls; and Nan added, "I never enjoyed anything so much in my life," in a tone so fervent that d.i.c.k was delighted.

"What a brick your mother was, to be sure, to spare you all!"

"Yes; and she was so dull, poor dear, all the time we were away.

Dorothy gave us quite a pitiful account when we got home."

"It was a treat one ought to remember all one's life," observed Phillis, quite solemnly; and then ensued a most animated discussion.

The treat to which Phillis alluded had been simply perfect in the three girls' eyes. d.i.c.k, who never forgot his friends, had so worked upon his mother that she had consented to chaperon the three sisters during Commemoration; and a consent being fairly coaxed out of Mrs.

Challoner, the plan was put into execution.

d.i.c.k, who was in the seventh heaven of delight, found roomy lodgings in the High Street, in which he installed his enraptured guests.

The five days that followed were simply hours s.n.a.t.c.hed out of fairyland to these four happy young creatures. No wonder envious looks were cast at d.i.c.k as he walked in Christ Church Meadows with Nan and Dulce, Phillis bringing up the rear somewhat soberly with Mrs. Mayne.

"One pretty face would content most fellows," his friends grumbled; "but when you come to three, and not his own sisters either, why, it isn't fair on other folk." And to d.i.c.k they said, "Come, it is no use being so awfully close. Of course we see what's up: you are a lucky dog. Which is it, Mayne?--the pretty one with the pink and white complexion or the quiet one in gray, or the one with the mischievous eyes?"

"Faix, they are all darlints and jewels, bless their purty faces!"

drawled one young rogue, in his favorite brogue. "Here's the top of the morning to ye, Mayne; and it is mavourneen with the brown eyes and the trick of the smile like the sunshine's glint that has stolen poor Paddy's heart."

"Oh, shut up, you fellows!" returned d.i.c.k, in a disgusted voice. "What is the good of your pretending to be Irish, Hamilton, when you are a canny Scotchman?"

"Hoots, man, mind your clavers! You need not grizzle at a creature because he admires a wee gairl that is just beyond the lave,--a sonsie wee thing with a glint in her een like diamonds."

"Hamilton, will you leave off this foolery?"

"Nae doubt, nae doubt; would his honor pe axing if he pe wrang in the head, puir thing? Never mind that, put pe giving me the skene-dhu, or I will fight with proud-swords like a gentleman for the bit la.s.sie;"

but here a wary movement on d.i.c.k's part extinguished the torrent of Highland eloquence, and brought the canny Scotchman to the ground.

Perfectly oblivious of all these compliments, the Challoners enjoyed themselves with the zest of healthy, happy English girls. They were simply indefatigable: poor Mrs. Mayne succ.u.mbed utterly before the fine days were over.

They saw the procession of boats; they were at the flower-show at Worcester; Sunday afternoon found them in the Broad Walk; and the next night they were dancing at the University ball.

They raved about the beauty of Magdalen cloisters; they looked down admiringly into the deer-park; Addison's Walk became known to them, and the gardens of St. John's. Phillis talked learnedly about Cardinal Wolsey as she stood in Christ Church hall: and in the theatre "the young ladies in pink" invoked the most continuous cheers.

"Can they mean us?" whispered Dulce, rather alarmed, to their faithful escort d.i.c.k. "I don't see any other pink dresses!"

And d.i.c.k said, calmly,--

"Well, I suppose so. Some of those fellows up there are such a trumpery lot."

So Dulce grew more rea.s.sured.

But the greatest fun of all was the afternoon spent in d.i.c.k's room, when all his special friends were bidden to five o'clock tea, over which Nan, in her white gown, presided so gracefully.

What a dear, shabby old room it was, with old-fashioned window-seats, where one could look down into the quadrangle. d.i.c.k was an Oriel man, and thought his college superior even to Magdalen.

It became almost too hot and crowded at last, so many were the invitations given; but then, as d.i.c.k said afterwards, "he was such a soft-hearted beggar that he could not refuse the fellows that pestered him for invitations."

Mrs. Mayne, looking very proud and happy, sat fanning herself in one of these windows. Phillis and Dulce were in the other attended by that rogue Hamilton and half a dozen more. Nan was the centre of another clique, who hemmed her and the tea-table in so closely that d.i.c.k had to wander disconsolately round the outskirts: there was no getting a look from Nan that afternoon.

How hot it was! It was a grand _coup_ when the door opened and the scout made his appearance carrying a tray of ices.

"It is well to be Mayne!" half grumbled young Hamilton, as Dulce took one gratefully from his hand. "He is treating us like a prince, instead of the thin bread-and-b.u.t.ter entertainment he led us to expect. Put down that tea, Miss Challoner. I see iced claret-cup and strawberries in the corner. There is nothing like being an only child; doting parents are extremely useful articles. I am one of ten; would you believe it?" continued the garrulous youth. "When one has six brothers older than one's self, I will leave you to imagine the consequences."

"How nice!" returned Dulce, innocently; "I have always so longed for a brother. If it had not been for d.i.c.k, we should have had no one to do things for us."