Part 57 (2/2)

She was first roused by the inquiry, 'Shall I take in this letter, ma'am? it is charged four s.h.i.+llings over-weight. And it is for Mr.

Thomas, ma'am,' impressively concluded the parlour-maid, as one penetrated by Mr. Thomas's regard to small economies.

Ethel beheld a letter bloated beyond the capacities of the two bewigged Was.h.i.+ngtons that kept guard in its corner, and addressed in a cramped hand unknown to her; but while she hesitated, her eye fell on another American letter directed to Miss Mary May, in Averil Ward's well-known writing, and turning both round, she found they had the same post-mark, and thereupon paid the extra charge, and placed the letter where Tom was most likely to light naturally on it without public comment. The other letter renewed the pang at common property being at an end. 'No, Mab,' she said, taking the little dog into her lap, 'we shall none of us hear a bit of it! But at least it is a comfort that this business is over! You needn't creep under sofas now, there's n.o.body to tread upon your dainty little paws. What is to be done, Mab, to get out of a savage humour--except thinking how good-natured poor Tom is!'

There was not much sign of savage humour in the face that was lifted up as Dr. May came in from the hospital, and sitting down by his daughter, put his arm round her. 'So there's another bird flown,' he said. 'We shall soon have the old nest to ourselves, Ethel.'

'The Daisy is not going just yet,' said Ethel, stroking back the thin flying flakes over his temples. 'If we may believe her, never!'

'Ah! she will be off before we can look round,' said the Doctor; 'when once the trick of marrying gets among one's girls, there's no end to it, as long as they last out.'

'Nor to one's boys going out into the world,' said Ethel: both of them talking as if she had been his wife, rather than one of these fly-away younglings herself.

'Ah! well,' he said, 'it's very pretty while it lasts, and one keeps the creatures; but after all, one doesn't rear them for one's own pleasure. That only comes by the way of their chance good-will to one.'

'For shame, Doctor!' said Ethel, pretending to shake him by the collar.

'I was thinking,' he added, 'that we must not require too much. People must have their day, and in their own fas.h.i.+on; and I wish you would tell Tom--I've no patience to do it myself--that I don't mean to hamper him. As long as it is a right line, he may take whichever he pleases, and I'll do my best to set him forward in it; but it is a pity--'

'Perhaps a few years of travelling, or of a professors.h.i.+p, might give him time to think differently,' said Ethel.

'Not he,' said the Doctor; 'the more a man lives in the world, the more he depends on it. Where is the boy? is he gone without vouchsafing a good-bye?'

'Oh no, he has taken pity on Annie and Caroline Cheviot's famine of croquet, and gone with them to the gardens.'

'A spice of flirtation never comes amiss to him.'

'There, that's the way!' said Ethel, half-saucily, half-caressingly; 'that poor fellow never can do right! Isn't it the very thing to keep him away from home, that we all may steal a horse, and he can't look over the wall, no, not with a telescope?'

'I can't help it, Ethel. It may be very wrong and unkind of me--Heaven forgive me if it is, and prevent me from doing the boy any harm! but I never can rid myself of a feeling of there being something behind when he seems the most straightforward. If he had only not got his grandfather's mouth and nose! And,' smiling after all--'I don't know what I said to be so scolded; all lads flirt, and you can't deny that Master Tom divided his attentions pretty freely last year between Mrs.

Pugh and poor Ave Ward.'

'This time, I believe, it was out of pure kindness to me,' said Ethel, 'so I am bound to his defence. He dragged off poor Daisy to chaperon them, that I might have a little peace.'

'Ah! he came down on us this morning,' said the Doctor, 'on Richard and Flora and me, and gave us a lecture on letting you grow old, Ethel--said you were getting over-tasked, and no one heeding it; and looking--let's look'--and he took off his spectacles, put his hand on her shoulder, and studied her face.

'Old enough to be a respectable lady of the house, I hope,' said Ethel.

'Wiry enough for most things,' said the Doctor, patting her shoulder, rea.s.sured; 'but we must take care, Ethel; if you don't fatten yourself up, we shall have Flora coming and carrying you off to London for a change, and for Tom to practise on.

'That is a threat! I expected he had been prescribing for me already, never to go near c.o.c.ksmoor, for that's what people always begin by--'

'Nothing worse than pale ale.' At which Ethel made one of her faces.

'And to make a Mary of that chit of a Daisy. Well, you may do as you please--only take care, or Flora will be down upon us.'

'Tom has been very helpful and kind to me,' said Ethel. 'And, papa, he has seen Leonard, and he says he looked so n.o.ble that to shake hands with him made him feel quite small.'

'I never heard anything so much to Tom's credit! Well, and what did he say of the dear lad?'

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