'No, he was too mean. Most likely he married a hideous millionaire: but the Mortons were always dreadful, and did all sorts of wicked things.'

'I declare it's as good as any tale--like the sweet one in the _Young Ladies' Friend_ now--"The Pride of Pedro." Have you seen it?'

'No, indeed, uncle and aunt only have great old stupid books! They wanted me to read those horrid tiresome things of Scott's, and d.i.c.kens's too, who is as old as the hills! Why, they could not think of anything better to do on their wedding tour but to go to all the places in the Waverley novels.'

'Why, they are as bad as history! Jim brought one home once, and pa wanted me to read it, but I could not get on with it--all about a stupid king of France. I'm sure if I married a lord I'd make him do something nicer.'

'I mean ma to do something more jolly,' said Ida, 'when we get more money, and I am come out. I mean to go to b.a.l.l.s and tennis parties, and I shall be sure to marry a lord at some of them.'

'And you will take me,' cried Sibyl.

'Only you must be very genteel,' said Ida. 'Try to learn style, _do_, dear. It must be learnt young, you know! Why, there's Aunt Mary, when she has got ever so beautiful a satin dress on, she does not look half so stylish as Lady Adela walking up the road in an old felt hat and a shepherd's-plaid waterproof! But they all do dress so as I should be ashamed. Only think what a sc.r.a.pe that got Herbert into. He was coming back one Sat.u.r.day from his tutor's, and he saw walking up to the house an awfully seedy figure of fun, in an old old ulster, and such a hat as you never saw, with a knapsack on her back, and a portfolio under her arm.

So of course he thought it was a tramp with something to sell, and he holloaed out, "You'd better come out of this! We want none of your sort." She just turned round and laughed, which put him in such a rage, that though she began to speak he didn't wait, but told her to have done with her sauce, or he would call the keepers. He thinks she said, "You'd better," and I believe he did move his stick a little.'

'Ida, have done with that!' cried Herbert's voice close to her. 'Hold your tongue, or I'll--' and his hand was near her hair.

'Oh, don't, don't, Herbert. Let me hear,' cried Sibyl.

'That's the way girls go on,' said Herbert fiercely, 'with their nonsense and stuff.'

'But who--?'

'If you go on, Ida--' he was clutching her braid.

Sibyl sprang to the defence, and there was a general struggle and romp interspersed with screams, which was summarily stopped by Mr. Rollstone explaining severely, 'If you think that is the deportment of the aristocracy, Miss Ida, you are much mistaken.'

'Bother the aristocracy!' broke out Herbert.

Calm was restored by a summons to a round game, but Sibyl's curiosity was of course insatiable, and as she sat next to Herbert, she employed various blandishments and sympathetic whispers, and after a great deal of fuss, and 'What will you give me if I tell?' to extract the end of the story, 'Did he call the keeper?'

'Oh yes, the old beast! His name's Best, but it ought to be Beast! He guffawed ever so much worse than she did!'

'Well, but who was it?'

And after he had tried to make her guess, and teased his fill, he owned, 'Mrs. Bury--a sort of cousin, staying with Lady Adela. She isn't half a bad old party, but she makes a guy of herself, and goes about sketching and painting like a blessed old drawing-master.'

'A lady? and not a young lady.'

'Not as old as--as Methuselah, or old Rolypoly there, but I believe she's a grandmother. If she'd been a boy, we should have been cut out of it.

Oh yes, she's a lady--a born Morton; and when it was over she was very jolly about it--no harm done--bears no malice, only Ida makes such an absurd work about every little trifle.'

CHAPTER XV THE PIED ROOK

Constance Morton was leaning on the rail that divided the gardens at Northmoor from the park, which was still rough and heathery. Of all the Morton family, perhaps she was the one who had the most profited by the three years that had pa.s.sed since her uncle's accession to the t.i.tle.

She had been at a good boarding-house, attending the High School in Colbeam, and spending Sat.u.r.day and Sunday at Northmoor. It had been a happy life, she liked her studies, made friends with her companions, and enjoyed to the very utmost all that Northmoor gave her, in country beauty and liberty, in the kindness of her uncle and aunt, and in the religious training that they were able to give her, satisfying longings of her soul, so that she loved them with all her heart, and felt Northmoor her true home. The holiday time at Westhaven was always a trial. Mrs.

Morton had tried Brighton and London, but neither place agreed with Ida: and she found herself a much greater personage in her own world than elsewhere, and besides could not always find tenants for her house. So there she lived at her ease, called by many of her neighbours the Honourable Mrs. Morton, and finding listeners to her alternate accounts of the grandeur of Northmoor, and murmurs at the meanness of its master in only allowing her 300 pounds a year, besides educating her children, and clothing two of them.

Ida considered herself to be quite sufficiently educated, and so she was for the society in which she was, or thought herself, a star, chiefly consisting of the families of the shipowners, coalowners, and the like.

She was pretty, with a hectic prettiness of bright eyes and cheeks, and had a following of the young men of the place; and though she always tried to enforce that to receive attentions from a smart young mate, a clerk in an office, a doctor's a.s.sistant, or the like, was a great condescension on her part, she enjoyed them all the more. Learning new songs for their benefit, together with extensive novel reading, were her chief employments, and it was the greater pity because her health was not strong. She dreamt much in a languid way, and had imagination enough to work these tales into her visions of life. Her temper suffered, and Constance found the atmosphere less and less congenial as she grew older and more accustomed to a different life.

She was a gentle, ladylike girl, with her brown hair still on her shoulders, as on that summer Sat.u.r.day she stood looking along the path, but with her ears listening for sounds from the house, and an anxious expression on her young face. Presently she started at the sound of a gun, which caused a mighty cawing among the rooks in the trees on the slopes, and a circling of the black creatures in the sky. A whistling then was heard, and her brother Herbert came in sight in a few minutes more, a fine tall youth of sixteen, with quite the air and carriage of a gentleman. He had a gun on his shoulder, and carried by the claws the body of a rook with white wings.

'Oh, Herbert,' cried Constance in dismay, 'did you shoot that by mistake?'

'No; Stanhope would not believe there was such a crittur, and betted half a sov that it was a cram.'

'But how could you? Our uncle and aunt thought so much of that poor dear Whitewing, and Best was told to take care of it. They will be so vexed.'

'Nonsense! He'll come to more honour stuffed than ever he would flying and howling up there. When I've shown him to Stanhope, I shall make that old fellow at Colbeam come down handsomely for him. What a row those birds kick up! I'll send my other barrel among them.'

'Oh no, don't, Bertie. Uncle Frank has one of his dreadful headaches to-day.'

'Seems to me he is made of headaches.'

'Yes, Aunt Mary is very anxious. Oh, I would have done anything that you had not vexed them now and killed this poor dear pretty thing!' said Constance, stroking down the glossy feathers of the still warm victim, and laying them against her cheek, almost tearfully.

'Well, you are not going to tell them. Perhaps they won't miss it. I would not have done it if Stanhope had not been such a beast,' said Herbert.

'I shall not tell them, of course,' said Constance; 'but, if I were you, I should not be happy till they knew.'

'Oh, that's only girl's way! I can't have the old Stick upset now, for I'm in horrid want of tin.'

'Oh, Bertie, was it true then?'

'What, you don't mean that they have heard?'

'That you were out at those Colbeam races!'

'To be sure I was, with Stanhope and Hailes and a lot more. We all went except the little kids and Sisson, who is in regular training for as great a m.u.f.f as the governor there. Who told him?'

'Mr. Hailes, who is very much concerned about his grandson.'

'Old sneak; I wonder how he ferreted it out. Is there no end of a jaw coming, Con?'

'I don't know. Uncle Frank seemed quite knocked down and wretched over it. He said something about feeling hopeless, and the old blood coming out to be your ruin.'

'Of course it's the old blood! How did he miss it, and turn into the intolerable old dry fogey that he is, without a notion of anything fit for a gentleman?'

'Now, Herbert--'

'Oh yes. You should just hear what the other fellows say about him.

Their mothers and their sisters say there is not so stupid a place in the county, he hasn't a word to say for himself, and they would just as soon go to Portland at once as to a party here.'

'Then it is a great shame! I am sure Aunt Mary works hard to make it pleasant for them!'