Mildred Arkell Volume I Part 37

"Immediately. And very fortunate we have been in getting him so good a thing. I hope the climate will agree with him."

"Grandpapa," said young Lewis, running up to the squire, "here are two flies coming down the street now. Shall I rush out and secure them first?"

"Ask Mr. Carr, my boy. He may like to stay longer, and give a chance to the rain to abate."

Mr. Carr, old Marmaduke, laughed. He knew John Carr of old, and his stingy nature. He would not order the flies to be retained lest the payment of them should fall to him.

"Go and secure them both, boy," said old Marmaduke; "and there's a s.h.i.+lling for your own trouble."

Young Lewis galloped out, spinning the s.h.i.+lling in his hand. "Don't I hope old Marmaduke will leave all his money to me!" quoth he, mentally.

To say the truth, the whole family of the Carrs indulged golden dreams of this money more frequently than they need have done--apart from the squire, who was the most sanguine dreamer of all.

They were going out, to stow themselves in the two flies as they best could, when Marmaduke's eye fell on Travice Arkell. The old man caught his hand.

"Will you come home and dine with us, Travice? Five o'clock, sharp!"

"Thank you, sir--I shall be very glad," replied Travice, who liked good dinners as well as most schoolboys, and Mr. Carr's style of dinner, when he did entertain, was renowned.

"If you don't want these flies to be taken by somebody else, you had better come!" cried out young Lewis, putting his wet head in at the entrance door. "Mamma, I am stopping another for you."

Travice Arkell for once imitated the junior college boys, and splashed recklessly through the puddles of the streets, as fast as his legs would carry him, on his way to the Palmery, for he wanted to see Frederick St.

John: he had just time. His nearest road led him past Peter Arkell's, and he spared a minute to look in.

"So you have got home safely, Lucy?"

"As if I could get home anything but safely, coming as I did!" returned Lucy, in merriment. "Such a commotion it caused when the carriage dashed up! The elm-trees became alive with rooks'-heads, not to speak of the windows. You should have seen the footman and his cane marshalling me to the door! But oh, Travice! when I got inside, the gilt was taken off the gingerbread!"

"How so?"

"You know how badly papa sees now without his spectacles. He did not happen to have them on, and he took it to be the old beadle of St.

James the Less, with his laced hat and staff. He said he could not think what he wanted."

Travice laughed, laughed merrily, with Lucy. He stayed a minute, and then splashed on to the Palmery.

Frederick St. John was sitting up, but he had been really ill in the morning. Mrs. James and Lady Anne were giving him and Mrs. St. John the details of the concert. It was not surprising that no one had known Lady Anne. She had paid a long visit to Westerbury several years before, when she was a little girl; but growing girls alter, and her face was not recognised again. She had come for a long visit now, bringing, as before, her carriage and three or four servants--for she was an orphan, and had her own establishment.

"I say, Arkell, I'm glad you are come. Anne is trying to enlighten us about the grand doings this morning, and she can't do it at all. She protests that Mr. Wilberforce sang the comic song."

Lady Anne eagerly turned to Travice. "That little gentleman in silver spectacles, who was looking so impatiently for his carriage--who told you once or twice to pay attention to the college boys--was it not Mr.

Wilberforce?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Well, did he _not_ sing the comic song? I'm sure, if not, it was some one very like him."

Travice enjoyed the mistake. "It was little Poyns, the lay-clerk, who sang the comic song," he said, looking at Mrs. St. John and Frederick.

"When Poyns gets himself up in black, as he did to-day, he looks exactly like a clergyman; and his size and spectacles do bear a resemblance to Mr. Wilberforce. But it was not Mr. Wilberforce, Lady Anne."

"Arkell," cried St. John, from his place on the sofa by the fire, Mrs.

St. John being opposite to him, and the others dispersed as they chose about the small square room, glittering with costly furniture, "who was it came in unexpectedly and surprised you? Anne thinks it was one of the old college fellows."

"It was Anderson. Don't you remember him? He has got his company now."

"Anderson! I should like to see him. I hope he'll come and see me.

Where's he stopping? I shall go out to-morrow."

"You'll do no such thing, Frederick," interposed Mrs. St. John.

"What a charming girl is Miss Lucy Arkell!" exclaimed Mrs. James to Travice. "She puts me greatly in mind of her mother, and yet she is not like her in the face. There is the same expression though, and she has the same gentle, sweet, modest manners. I like Lucy Arkell."

"So do I," cried Mr. St. John. "If my heart were not bespoken, I'm sure I should give it to her."

The words were uttered jestingly; nevertheless, Mrs. St. John glanced up uneasily. Frederick saw it. _He_ knew in what direction his heart was expected to be given, and he stole a glance involuntarily at Lady Anne; but it pa.s.sed from her immediately to rest upon his mother--a glance in which there was incipient rebellion to the wishes of his family; and Mrs. St. John had feared that it might be so, since the day when he had said, in his off-hand way, that Anne St. John was not the wife for his money.

Mrs. St. John's pulses were beating a shade quicker. There might be truth in his present careless a.s.sertion, that his heart was bespoken.

END OF VOL. I.