CHAPTER III.

"Now isn't that charming?" said Mrs. Errington, finishing a paragraph descriptive of some brilliant evening party at which Algernon had been present, and looking round triumphantly at her audience.

"Very, indeed," said Minnie, who had been specially appealed to.

"Quite a graphic picture of the bow mong," said Miss Chubb. "I know all about that sort of society, so I can answer for the correctness of Algy's description."

Miss Chubb had the discretion to lower her voice as she made the latter remark, so that no one heard it save Mr. Warlock, and thus Mrs. Errington was not challenged to contradiction.

"How well Algernon writes," observed Mr. Diamond. "He has the trick of the thing so neatly, and puts out what he has to say so effectively! I wonder he has never thought of turning his pen to profit."

"My son, sir, has other views," returned Mrs. Errington loftily. "But as to what you are pleased to call 'the trick of the thing,' I can assure you that literary talent is hereditary in our family. I don't know, my dear Minnie, whether you have happened to hear me mention it, but my great uncle by the mother's side was a most distinguished author."

"Really?"

"What did he write?" asked Miss Chubb, with much distinctness. But Mrs. Errington took no heed of the question. "And my own father's letters were considered models of style," she continued. "A large number of them are, I believe, still preserved in the family archives at Ancram Park."

"How did they come there?" asked Miss Chubb. "Unless he wrote letters to himself, they must have been scattered about here and there."

"They were collected after his death, Miss Chubb. You may not be aware, perhaps, that it is not an unfrequent custom to collect the correspondence of eminent men. It was done in the case of Walpole. And—Mr. Diamond will correct me if I am wrong—in that of the celebrated Persian gentleman, whose letters are so well known. Mirza was the name, I think?"

Miss Chubb felt herself on unsafe ground here, and did not venture farther.

"Well, at all events, Algernon appears to be getting on admirably in London," said the Reverend Peter, pacifically.

Minnie threw him an approving glance, for his good-natured words dispelled a little cloud on Miss Chubb's brow, and brought down Mrs. Errington from her high horse to the level of friendly sympathies. "Oh, he is getting on wonderfully, dear fellow!" said she.

"I'm sure we are all glad to hear of Algy's doing well, and being happy. He is such a nice, genial, unaffected creature! And never gave himself any airs!" said Miss Chubb, with a sidelong toss of her head and a little unnecessary emphasis.

"Oh no, my dear. That sort of vulgar pretension is not found among folks who come of a real good ancient stock," replied Mrs. Errington, with superb complacency.

"And we are not to have the pleasure of seeing Algernon back among us this summer?" said Mr. Warlock. In general he shrank from much conversation with Mrs. Errington, whom he found somewhat overwhelming; but he would have nerved himself to greater efforts than talking to that thick-skinned lady for the sake of a kind look from Minnie Bodkin.

"Oh, impossible! Quite out of the question. He is sorry, of course. And I am sorry. But it would be cruel in him to desert poor dear Seely, when he is so anxious to have him with him all the summer!"

"Is there anything the matter with Lord Seely?" asked Minnie.

"N—no, my dear. Nothing but a little overwork. The mental strain of a man in his position is very severe, and he depends so on Algy! And so does dear Lady Seely. I ought almost to feel jealous. They say openly that they look on him quite as a son."

"It's a pity they haven't a daughter, isn't it?" said Miss Chubb.

Mrs. Errington did not catch the force of the hint. She answered placidly, "They have an adopted daughter; a niece of my lord's, who is almost always with them."

"Oh, indeed," said Diamond, quickly. "I had not heard that!"

Mrs. Errington bestowed a stolid, china-blue stare on him before replying, "I daresay not, sir."

The fact was that Mrs. Errington had not known it herself until quite recently; for Algernon, either mistrusting his mother's prudence—or for some other reason—had passed lightly over Castalia's name in his letters, and for some time had not even mentioned that she was an inmate of Lord Seely's house. In his latter letters he had spoken of Miss Kilfinane, but in terms purposely chosen to check, as far as possible, any match-making flights of fancy, which his mother might indulge in with reference to that lady.

"I am not sure, my dear," proceeded Mrs. Errington, turning to Minnie, "whether I have happened to mention it to you, but Castalia—the Honourable Castalia Kilfinane, only daughter of Lord Kauldkail—is staying with the dear Seelys. But as she is rather sickly, and not very young, she cannot, of course, be to them what Algy is."

"Oh! Not very young?" said Miss Chubb, in a tone of disappointment.

"Well, not very young, comparatively speaking, Miss Chubb. She might be considered young compared with you and me, I daresay."

Fortunately, perhaps, for the preservation of peace, much imperilled by this last speech of Mrs. Errington's, Dr. Bodkin and his wife here entered the drawing-room. Although it was May, and the temperature was mild for the season, a good fire blazed in the grate; and on the rug in front of it Dr. Bodkin, after saluting the assembled company, took up his accustomed station. Diamond rose, and stood leaning on the mantel-shelf near to his chief (an action which Mrs. Errington viewed with disfavour, as indicating on the part of the second master at the Grammar School a too great ease, and absence of due subjection in the presence of his superiors), and the Reverend Peter and Miss Chubb drew their chairs nearer to the fireplace, thus bringing the scattered members of the party into a more sociable circle. The doctor was understood to object to his society being broken up into groups of two or three, and to prefer general conversation; which, indeed, afforded better opportunities for haranguing, and for looking at the company as a class brought up for examination, and, if needful, correction, according to the doctor's habit of mind. Only Rhoda remained at her window, apart from the others, and Dr. Bodkin, seeing her there, called to her to come nearer.

"What, little Primrose!" said the doctor, kindly. "Don't stay there looking at the moon. She is chillier and not so cosy as the coal fire. Draw the curtain, and shut her out, and come nearer to us all."

Rhoda obeyed, blushing deeply as she advanced within the range of the lamp-light, and looking so pretty and timid that the doctor began smilingly to murmur into Diamond's ear something about "Hinnuleo similis, non sine vano burarum et silu? metu."

The doctor's prejudice against Rhoda had long been overcome, and she had grown to be a pet of his, in so far as so awful a personage as the doctor was capable of petting any one. To this result the conversion to orthodoxy of the Maxfield family may have contributed. But, possibly, Rhoda's regular attendance at St. Chad's might have been inefficacious to win the doctor's favour, good churchman though he was, without some assistance from her blooming complexion, soft hazel eyes, and graceful, winning manners.

The girl came forward bashfully into the circle around the fire, and nestled herself down on a low seat between Mrs. Errington and Mrs. Bodkin. A month ago her place in that drawing-room would have been beside Minnie's chair. But lately, by some subtle instinct, Rhoda had a little shrunk from her former intimacy with the young lady. She was sensitive enough to feel the existence of some unexpressed disapproval of herself in Minnie's mind.

"We have been hearing a letter of Algernon's, papa," said Minnie.

"Have you? have you?"

"Mrs. Errington has been kind enough to read it to us."

The doctor left his post of vantage on the hearth-rug for an instant, went to his daughter, and, bending down, kissed her on the forehead. "Pretty well this evening, my darling?" said he. Minnie caught her father's hand as he was moving away again and pressed it to her lips. "Thank God for you and mother," she whispered. Minnie was not given to demonstrations of tenderness, having been rather accustomed, like most idolised children, to accept her parents' anxious affection as she accepted her daily bread—that is to say, as a matter of course. But there was something in her heart now which made her keenly alive to the preciousness of that abounding and unselfish devotion.

"I think it is quite touching to see that father and daughter together," said Miss Chubb confidentially to her neighbour the curate. "So severe a man as the doctor is in general! Quite the churchman! Combined with the scholastic dignitary, you know. And yet, with Minnie, as gentle as a woman."

As to Mr. Warlock, the tears were in his eyes, and he unaffectedly wiped them away, answering Miss Chubb only by a nod.

"And what," said the doctor, when he had resumed his usual place, and his usual manner, "what is the news from our young friend, Algernon?"

Mrs. Errington began to recapitulate some of the items in her son's last letter—the "lords and ladies gay" whose society he frequented; the brilliant compliments that were paid him by word and deed; and the immense success which his talents and attractions met with everywhere.

"Yes; and Algernon is kindly received by other sorts and conditions of men besides the aristocracy of this realm," said Minnie, with a little ironical smile. "He has shone in evening receptions at Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs's, and sipped lawyer Leadbeater's port-wine with appreciative gusto."

"He has to be civil to people, you know, my dear," said Mrs. Errington, smoothly. "It wouldn't do to neglect—a—a—persons who mean to be attentive, merely because they are not quite in our own set."

"I trust not, indeed, madam!" exclaimed the doctor, with protruding lips and frowning brow. "It would be exceedingly impolitic in Algernon to turn away from proffered kindness. But I will not put the matter on that ground. I should be sorry to think that a youth who has been—I may say—formed and brought up under my tuition, could be capable of ignoble and ungentlemanlike behaviour."

Mrs. Bodkin glanced a little apprehensively at Mrs. Errington after this explosion of the doctor's. But that descendant of all the Ancrams had not the slightest idea of being offended. She was smiling with much complacency, and answered mellifluously to the doctor's thunder, "Thank you, Dr. Bodkin. Now that is so nice in you to appreciate Algy as you do! He is, and ever was, like his ancestors before him, the soul of gentlemanliness."

"Algernon was always most popular, I'm sure," said Miss Chubb. "He was a favourite with everybody. Such lively manners! And at home with all classes!"

"Yes," said Diamond in a low voice. "Superis Deorum gratus, et imis."

"Now what may that mean?" asked Miss Chubb, who had quick ears.

"The words were applied to a mythological personage of very flexible talents, madam," replied Diamond.

"Oh, mythological? Well, I never went very far into mythology. Now, it's a singular circumstance, which has often struck me, and perhaps some of you learned gentlemen may be able to explain it, that none of the studies in 'ology' ever seemed to have much attraction for me; whereas the 'ographies' always interested me very much. There was geography, now. I used to know the names of all the European rivers when I was quite a child. And orthography and biography. We had a translation of Pluto's Lives at the rectory, and I was uncommonly fond of them. But, as to the 'ologies,' I frankly own that I know nothing about them."

The effect of this speech of Miss Chubb's was much heightened by the mute commentary of Dr. Bodkin's face during its utterance. When she came to Pluto's Lives, the scholastic eyes rolled round on Mr. Diamond and the curate with an expression of such helpless indignation, that the former was driven to blow his nose with violence, in order to smother an explosion of laughter. And even Mr. Warlock's sombre brow relaxed, and he ventured to steal a smiling glance at Minnie.

But Minnie did not return the glance. She had shaded her eyes with her hand, and was leaning back in her chair, unheeding the conversation that was going on around her.

"But now, really, you know, there must be some reason for these things, if philosophers could only find it out," pursued Miss Chubb, cheerfully. "Mustn't there, Minnie?"

"Eh? I beg your pardon!"

"Oh you naughty, absent girl! You have not heard a word I've been saying. I was merely remarking that——"

But at this point Dr. Bodkin's patience suddenly snapped. He found himself unable silently to endure a recapitulation of Miss Chubb's views as to the comparative attractions of the "ologies" and the "ographies;" and he abruptly demanded of his wife, in the magisterial tones which had often struck awe into the hearts of the lowest form, "Laura, are we not to have our rubber before midnight? Pray make up the table in the next room. There are—let me see!—Mrs. Errington, Miss Chubb, you will take a hand, Laura? We are just a quartet." And the doctor, giving his arm to Mrs. Errington, marched off to the whist-table.

On this occasion Mr. Warlock escaped being obliged to play. Indeed, the curate's assistance at whist was only called into requisition when a second table besides the doctor's had to be made up; for, although Dr. Bodkin co-operated very comfortably with his curate in all church matters, he found himself not altogether able to do so at the green table, the Reverend Peter's notions of whist being confused and elementary. To be sure, Mrs. Bodkin was not a much better player than the curate; but then she offered the compensating advantage of enduring an unlimited amount of scolding—whether as partner or adversary—without resenting it.

So Diamond, and Warlock, and Minnie, and Rhoda remained in the big drawing-room when their elders had left it. Minnie had the lamp shaded, and the curtains opened, so that the full clear light of the climbing moon poured freely into the room. Warlock timidly drew near to Miss Bodkin's chair, and ventured to say a word or two now and then, to which he received answers so kind and gracious, that the poor fellow's heart swelled with gratitude, and perhaps with hope, for hope is very cunning and stealthy, and hides herself under all sorts of unlikely feelings.

Minnie had grown much more gentle and patient with the awkward, plain, rather dull curate of late. She listened to his talk and replied to it. And all the while she was taking eager cognisance, with eye and ear, of the two who sat side by side near the window, Diamond bending down to speak softly to Rhoda, and the girl's delicate face, white and sprite-like in the moonlight, turning now and then towards her companion with a pretty, languid gesture. Once or twice Rhoda laughed at something Diamond said to her. Her laugh was perhaps a little suggestive of silliness, but it was low, and musical, and rippling; and it was not too frequent.

Minnie sat with her hands clasped in her lap; and when she was carried to her own room that night, Jane exclaimed, as she removed her young mistress's ornaments, "Goodness, Miss Minnie, what have you done to yourself? Why that diamond ring you wear has made a desperate mark in your finger. It looks as if it had been driven right into the flesh, as hard as could be!"

Minnie held up her thin white hand to the light, and looked at it strangely.

"Ah!" said she, "I must have pressed and twisted the ring about, unconsciously. I was thinking of something else."