"Oh, indeed! Mayne is a sort of adopted brother!" observed her companion, looking at her rather sharply.

"We have always looked upon him as one. We do just as we like with him,--scold and tease him, and send him on our errands;" which intelligence fairly convinced the envious Hamilton that the youngest Miss Challoner was not his friend's fancy.

d.i.c.k always recalled that evening with a sense of pride. How well and gracefully Nan had fulfilled her duties! how pretty she had looked, in spite of her flushed cheeks! He had never seen a girl to compare with her,--not he!

They were so full of these delightful reminiscences that they were at the cottage gate before they knew it; and then d.i.c.k astonished them by refusing to come in. He had quite forgotten, he said, but his mother had asked him to come home early, as she was not feeling just the thing.

"Quite right; you must do as she wishes," returned Nan, dismissing him far too readily, as he thought; but she said "Good-night!" with so kind a smile after that, that the foolish young fellow felt his pulses quicken.

d.i.c.k lingered at the corner until the cottage door was closed, and then he raced down the Longmead shrubbery and set the house-bell pealing.

"They are in the library, I suppose?" he asked of the butler who admitted him; and, on receiving an answer in the affirmative, he dashed unceremoniously into the room, while his mother held up her finger and smiled at the truant.

"You naughty boy, to be so late; and now you have spoiled you father's nap!" she said, pretending to scold him.

"Tut! tut! what nonsense you talk sometimes!" said Mr. Mayne, rather crossly, as he stood on the hearth-rug rubbing his eyes. "I was not asleep, I will take my oath of that; only I wish d.i.c.k could sometimes enter a room without making people jump;" by which d.i.c.k knew that his father was in one of his contrary moods, when he could be very cross,--very cross indeed!

CHAPTER III.

MR. MAYNE MAKES HIMSELF DISAGREEABLE.

The library at Longmead was a very pleasant room, and it was the custom of the family to retire thither on occasions when guests were not forthcoming, and Mr. Mayne could indulge in his favorite nap without fear of interruption.

A certain simplicity, not to say homeliness, of manners prevailed in the house. It was understood among them that the dining-room was far too gorgeous for anything but occasions of ceremony. Mrs. Mayne, indeed, had had the good taste to cover the satin couches with pretty, fresh-looking cretonne, and had had arranged hanging cupboards of old china until it had been transformed into a charming apartment, notwithstanding which the library was declared to be the family-room, where the usual masculine a.s.sortment of litter could be regarded with indulgent eyes, and where papers and pamphlets lay in delightful confusion.

Longmead was not a pretentious house--it was a moderate-sized residence, adapted to a gentleman of moderate means; but in summer no place could be more charming. The broad gravel walk before the house had a background of roses; hundreds of roses climbed up the railings or twined themselves about the steps: a tiny miniature lake, garnished with water-lilies, lay in the centre of the lawn; a group of old elm-trees was beside it; behind the house lay another lawn, and beyond were meadows where a few sheep were quietly grazing. Mr. Mayne, who found time hang a little heavily on his hands, prided himself a good deal on his poultry-yard and kitchen-garden. A great deal of his spare time was spent among his favorite Bantams and Dorkings, and in superintending his opinionated old gardener--on summer mornings he would be out among the dews in his old coat and planter's hat, weeding among the gooseberry-bushes.

"It is the early bird that finds the worm," he would say, when d.i.c.k sauntered into the breakfast-room later on; for, in common with the youth of his generation, he had a wholesome horror of early rising, which he averred was one of the barbarous usages of the dark ages in which his elders had been bred.

"I never took any interest in worms, sir," returned d.i.c.k, helping himself to a tempting rasher that had just been brought in hot for the pampered youth. "By the bye, have you seen Darwin's work on 'The Formation of Vegetable Mould'? he declares that worms have played a more important part in the history of the world than most people would at first suppose: they were our earliest ploughmen."

"Oh, ah! indeed, very interesting!" observed his father, dryly; "but all the same, I beg to observe, no one succeeded in life who was not an early riser."

"A sweeping a.s.sertion, and one I might be tempted to argue, if it were not for taking up your valuable time," retorted d.i.c.k, lazily, but with a twinkle in his eye. "I know my const.i.tution better than to trust myself out before the world is properly aired and dried. I am thinking it is less a case of worms than of rheumatism some early birds will be catching;" to which Mr. Mayne merely returned an ungracious "Pshaw!"

and marched off, leaving his son to enjoy his breakfast in peace.

When d.i.c.k entered the library on the evening in question, Mr. Mayne's querulous observation as to the noisiness of his entrance convinced him at once that his father was in a very bad humor indeed, and that on this account it behooved him to be exceedingly cool.

So he kissed his mother, who looked at him a little anxiously, and then sat down and turned out her work-basket, as he had done Nan's two or three hours ago.

"You are late after all, d.i.c.k," she said, with a little reproach in her voice. It was hardly a safe observation, to judge by her husband's cloudy countenance; but the poor thing sometimes felt her evenings a trifle dull when d.i.c.k was away. Mr. Mayne would take up his paper, but his eyes soon closed over it; that habit of seeking for the early worm rather disposed him to somnolent evenings, during which his wife knitted and felt herself nodding off out of sheer _ennui_ and dulness.

These were not the hours she had planned during those years of waiting; she had told herself that Richard would read to her or talk to her as she sat over her work, that they would have so much to say to each other; but now, as she regarded his sleeping countenance evening after evening, it may be doubted whether matrimony was quite what she expected, since its bliss was so temperate and so strongly infused with drowsiness.

d.i.c.k looked up innocently. "Am I late, mother?"

"Oh, of course not," returned his father, with a sneer; "it is not quite time to ring for Nicholson to bring our candles. Bessie, I think I should like some hot water to-night; I feel a little chilly." And Bessie rang the bell obediently, and without any surprise in her manner. Mr. Mayne often woke up chilly from his long nap.

"Are you going to have a 'drap of the cratur'?" asked his son, with alacrity. "Well, I don't mind joining you, and that's the truth, for we have been dawdling about, and I am a trifle chilly myself."

"You know I object to spirits for young men," returned Mr. Mayne, severely: nevertheless he pushed the whiskey to d.i.c.k as soon as he had mixed his own gla.s.s, and his son followed his example.

"I am quite of your opinion, father," he observed, as he regarded the handsome cut-gla.s.s decanter somewhat critically; "but there are exceptions to every rule, and when one is chilly----"

"I wish you would make an exception and stay away from the cottage sometimes," returned Mr. Mayne, with ill-suppressed impatience. "It was all very well when you were all young things together, but it is high time matters should be different."

d.i.c.k executed a low whistle of surprise and dismay. He had no idea his father's irritability had arisen from any definite cause. What a fool he had been to be so late! it might lead to some unpleasant discussion. Well, after all, if his father chose to be so disagreeable it was not his fault; and he was no longer a boy, to be chidden, or made to do this or that against his own will.

Mr. Mayne was sufficiently shrewd to see that his son was somewhat taken aback by this sudden onslaught, and he was not slow to press his advantage. He had wanted to give d.i.c.k a bit of his mind for some time, and after all there is no time like the present.

"Yes, it was all very well when you were a lot of children together,"

he continued. "Of course, it is hard on you, d.i.c.k, having no brothers and sisters to keep you company; your mother and I were always sorry about that for your sake."

"Oh, don't mention it," interrupted d.i.c.k: "on the whole, I am best pleased as it is."

"But it would have been better for you," returned his father, sharply: "we should not have had all this fooling and humbug if you had had sisters of your own."

"Fooling and humbug!" repeated d.i.c.k, hotly; "I confess, sir, I don't quite understand to what you are referring." He was growing very angry, but his mother flung herself between the combatants.

"Don't, my boy, don't; you must not answer your father in that way.

Richard, what makes you so hard on him to-night? It must be the gout, d.i.c.k: we had better send for Dr. Weatherby in the morning," continued the anxious woman, with tears in her eyes, "for your dear father would never be so cross to you as this unless he were going to be ill."

"Stuff and nonsense, Bessie! Dr. Weatherby indeed!" but his voice was less wrathful. "What is it but fooling, I should like to know, for d.i.c.k to be daundering his time away with a parcel of girls as he does with these Challoners!"

"I suppose you were never a young man yourself, sir."

"Oh, yes, I was, my boy," and the corners of Mr. Mayne's mouth relaxed in spite of his efforts to keep serious. "I fell in love with your mother, and stuck to her for seven or eight years; but I did not make believe that I was brother to a lot of pretty girls, and waste all my time dancing attendance on them and running about on their errands."

"You ought to have taken a lesson out of my book," returned his son, readily.

"No, I ought to have done no such thing, sir!" shouted back Mr. Mayne, waxing irate again. It could not be denied that d.i.c.k could be excessively provoking when he liked. "Don't I tell you it is time this sort of thing was stopped? Why, people will begin to talk, and say you are making up to one of them, it is not right, d.i.c.k; it is not, indeed," with an attempted pathos.

"I don't care that for what people say," returned the young fellow, snapping his fingers. "Is it not a pity you are saying all this to me just when I am going away and am not likely to see any of them for the next six months? You are very hard on me to-night, father; and I can't think what it is all about."

Mr. Mayne was silent a moment, revolving his son's pathetic speech. It was true he had been cross, and had said more than he had meant to say. He had not wished to hinder d.i.c.k's innocent enjoyments; but if he were unknowingly picking flowers at the edge of a precipice, was it not his duty as a father to warn him?

"I think I have been a little hard, my lad," he said, candidly, "but there, you and your mother know my bark is worse than my bite. I only wanted to warn you; that's all, d.i.c.k."

"Warn me!--against what, sir?" asked the young man, quickly.

"Against falling in love, really, with one of the Challoner girls!"

returned Mr. Mayne, trying to evade the fire of d.i.c.k's eyes, and bl.u.s.tering a little in consequence. "Why, they have not a penny, one of them, and, if report be true, Mrs. Challoner's money is very shakily invested. Paine told me so the other day. He said he should never wonder if a sudden crash came any minute."

"Is this true, Richard?"

"Paine declares it is; and think of d.i.c.k saddling himself with the support of a whole family!"