Not Like Other Girls Part 60

Sir Harry had blurted out this long speech as he still attentively regarded the lining of his hat; but, happening to look up, he caught Phillis's eyes, which were contemplating him. The mischievous look of fun in them was not to be resisted. Sir Harry first got redder, if possible; then his own eyes began to twinkle, and finally they both laughed. And after that the ice was broken, and they got on famously.

The girls chattered to him like magpies. They made Mattie take off her hat and hideous old waterproof and stay to luncheon. Nan smoothed her hair, which was sadly ruffled, and Phillis settled her brooch and collar.

There was only cold mutton in the larder; but what did that matter?

Dulce ran out in the garden and picked dahlias for the table; and Nan took her mother's keys and drew from the recesses of a dim sweet-smelling press some dainty napkins and a fine old cloth that might have suited a princess. There was a bottle of rare Madeira that remained from their stock of wine; and Dorothy had made a batch of fresh dinner-rolls. Dorothy was always full of resources in an emergency.

"Don't fash yourself, Miss Nan," she said, when her young mistress came into the kitchen. "The cold mutton can't be helped; but we have got angels in the larder, and I will just pop them into the oven."

Sir Harry roared with laughter when Dorothy's speech was repeated to him. The little puddings were declared by Mattie to be delicious; but Sir Harry could scarcely eat his for laughing.

"Who ever heard of baked angels, Aunt Catherine!" he exclaimed, after another explosion.

"My dear, it is only a name," she returned, mildly. "Will you have another, Harry? And, Nan, you must pa.s.s your cousin the Madeira."

They were all seated round the table in the small parlor. It was felt to be a triumph when Sir Harry contrived to seat himself without grazing himself seriously against the chiffonnier or knocking over a piece of the blue-and-gold china.

"What a cosey little cabin of a place!" he said with critical approval; "but it is rather small to hold you all,--eh, Aunt Catherine?"

"Yes: it is small after Glen Cottage," she sighed. "We had such a pretty drawing-room there."

"And such a lovely garden!" added Dulce.

"Oh, this crib in not fit for you? We will alter all that," he returned, complacently. "I am the head of the family now, and I must take my uncle's place. I am awfully rich, Aunt Catherine; so you have only got to tell me what you and the girls want, you know." And then he rubbed his hands as though he were pleased about something.

But no one took any notice of this speech, hardly knowing how to treat it.

When luncheon--which was, indeed, the family dinner--was over, the girls carried him off to the work-room, and showed him specimens of their skill.

"Very nice; very well done," he observed, approvingly.

"I am glad you showed such pluck; for why any woman should think it _infra dig._ to make a gown for another woman quite beats me. Why, bless you, in the colonies we fellows turned our hands to anything!

Well, Aunt Catherine, they are plucky ones, these girls of yours. But we must put a stop to this sort of thing, you and I. I don't think my uncle would have liked it. And as I am in his place----" And here he thrust aside some amber satin with his great hands, with a movement full of suggestive possibilities.

He took them all out to walk after that. Mrs. Challoner, indeed, begged to be excused,--the poor lady was already sadly fatigued, and longed for her nap,--but he would not dispense with Mattie's company.

"We were acquaintances first," he said to her; "and I look upon you as a sort of cousin too, Miss Mattie." And poor little Mattie, who had never met with so much friendliness before, quite blushed and bridled with pleasure.

Mr. Drummond, who was coming out of his own gate, stood as though transfixed as the procession came towards him. The four girls were walking all abreast, Mattie in the middle; and beside them stalked a huge man, in rough, rather outlandish attire, looking like a son of the Anakin, or a red-headed Goliath.

Archie stood still in the middle of the road, and Mattie rushed up to him:

"We are going for a walk. Oh, Archie, I wish you would come too! It would be such fun!"

"Yes; do come!" cried unconscious Nan, seconding her out of pure good nature. "Mr. Drummond, this is our cousin, Sir Henry Challoner, who has just come from Australia; and we have never seen him before." And then the young clergyman shook hands with him very stiffly, and spoke a few conventional words.

"They have not a man belonging to them," he had said to himself, triumphantly, and then that odious d.i.c.k had turned up and now this extraordinary-looking being who called himself Sir Henry Challoner.

Archie took down the "Peerage" when he got home, for he could not be induced to join the merry party in their walk. He found the name there all right,--"Henry Fortescue Challoner, son of Sir Francis Challoner, son of Sir Henry Challoner," and so on. It was an old baronetcy,--one of the oldest in England,--but the estates had dwindled down to a half-ruined residence and a few fields. "Challoner Place," as it was called, was nothing but a heap of mouldering walls; but Mattie had whispered to him gleefully that he was "awfully rich, and the head of the family, and unmarried; and he did not mean to let his cousins make gowns anymore for other people, though they might do it for themselves."

Mattie never forgot that walk. Never in her life had she enjoyed such fun. Archie, with his grave face and prim ways, would have spoiled the hilarity.

First Sir Henry took his cousins to the hotel, where they heard him order his apartments and dinner: he evidently considered he had not dined; and there was a good deal of discussion about some game that he ordered, and a certain brand of champagne that was to his liking.

"If they make me comfortable, I may stop on a goodish bit," he informed them, "until we have settled where my aunt would like to live. I shall run up to London every few days, and can do all your commissions. By the bye, I got some trinkets for you girls on my way down; we will haul them over when I come up for the cup of coffee Aunt Catherine promised me this evening."

"Now, Harry, we don't want presents," remarked Phillis, taking him to task as easily as though she had known him all her life long.

In spite of his bigness, his great burly figure and plain face, there was something very pleasant about him. He was rough and unpolished, his dress was careless and of colonial cut; and yet one could not fail to see he was a gentleman. His boyishness and fun would have delighted d.i.c.k, who was of the same calibre; only d.i.c.k was far cleverer, and had more in his little finger than this great lumbering Harry in his whole body.

He was slow and clumsy, but his heart and intentions were excellent; he was full of tenderness for women, and showed a touching sort of chivalry in his intercourse with them. In some way, his manners were far finer than those of a New Bond Street gentleman; for he could not sneer at a woman, he believed in the goodness of the s.e.x, in spite of much knowledge to the contrary, he could not tell a lie, and he only cheated himself. This was saying a good deal for the son of that very black sheep Sir Francis; but, as Sir Harry once simply observed, "his mother was a good woman:" if this were the case, her husband's vices must have shortened her life, for she died young.

Phillis was glad when they turned their backs on the town: she found her cousin's long purse a difficulty: it seemed an impossibility to get him past the shops.

First, he was sure Aunt Catherine was fond of champagne,--all ladies liked sweet sparkling things; but he would see about that at the hotel presently. Then his attention was attracted by some grouse hanging up at the poulterer's: Aunt Catherine must have some grouse, as he remembered the cold mutton. Phillis made no objection to the grouse, for she knew her mother's fondness for game; but she waxed indignant when partridges and a hare were added, and still more when Sir Harry ransacked the fruiterers for a supply of the rarest fruit the town could afford. After this, he turned his attention to cakes and bonbons; but here Dulce took his part, for she loved bonbons. Phillis caught Nan by the arm, and compelled her to leave them; but Mattie deserted her friends, and remained to watch the fun.

Dulce grew frightened at last, and tried to coax her cousin away.

"Oh, no more--no more?" she pleaded. "Phillis and Nan will be so angry with us."

"I don't see anything more worth getting," returned her cousin, contemptuously. "What a place this is, to be sure! Never mind, Dulce; I am going up to London to-morrow, and I will bring you down as many bonbons as you like from the French place in Regent Street. I will bring Miss Mattie some too," he continued, as the girls hurried him along. "And, Dulce, just write out a list of what you girls want; and I will get them, as sure as my name is Harry."

CHAPTER XL.

ALCIDES.

There was quite a battle-royal on the sea-sh.o.r.e after that: Dulce and Phillis pelted Laddie with bonbons; while their mother enjoyed her nap in the snug parlor. And Dorothy, pleased, bewildered, and half frightened at what the mistress might say, stowed away game and fruit and confectionery in the tiny larder, and then turned her attention to such a tea as her young ladies had not seen since the Glen Cottage days.

Laddie raced and barked, and nearly made himself ill with the sweet things; and Nan laughed, and then grew serious as she remembered an afternoon in the Longmead Meadows, when d.i.c.k, in wild spirits, had pelted her and Phillis with roses until their laps were full of the delicious, fragrant leaves. "'Sweets to the sweet,'--so look out for yourself, Nan!" he had said, in his half-rough, boyish way. But that was in the days when both were very young and d.i.c.k had not learned to make love.

Mattie joined in the game a little awkwardly,--it was so long since the poor little woman had played at anything. Her younger sisters never chose Mattie in their games. "She makes such mistakes, and puts us out; and that spoils the fun," they said; and so Grace was their favorite playfellow.

For it is perfectly true that some grown-up people have forgotten how to play, while others are such children at heart that they can abandon themselves most joyously and gracefully to any game, however romping; but Mattie, who was sobered by frequent snubbing, was not one of these. She loved fun still, in her way, but not as Phillis and Dulce, who thought it the cream of life and would not be content with the sort of skimmed-milk existence of other young ladies.

Sir Harry watched them admiringly, and his enthusiasm grew every moment.

"I say, you are the right sort, and no mistake. I never met jollier girls in my life. A fellow would not know which to choose: would he, Miss Mattie?"

Mattie took this seriously.

"Nan is chosen:--are you not, Nan?" she said, in her downright fashion. And then, as Sir Harry stared at this, and Nan blushed and looked even prettier, Phillis first scolded Mattie soundly for her bluntness, and then took upon herself to describe d.i.c.k's perfections:

"The dearest fellow in the world, Harry, when you come to know him; but not handsome, and dreadfully young looking, some people think.

But, as Nan will not look at any one else, we must make the best of him."