THE WANDERER'S RETURN.
Had the circumstances of William Tunstall's leaving his home been
more recent, or had the son of Edgar Tunstall been older, the news
that William Tunstall had returned and had taken up his residence
at Byrneside as master of the portion of the estate left him by his
brother, and as guardian to the young heir to the remainder, would have
caused a good deal of interest and excitement in the county. The twenty
years, however, that had elapsed since Will Tunstall had left home,
and the fact that when he went away he was but a lad quite unknown
personally to his father's acquaintances, deprived the matter of any
personal interest. It had generally been thought that it was hard that
he should have been entirely cut out of his father's will, and the
clause forbidding his brother to make any division of the property was
considered particularly so, especially as it was known that Edgar was
attached to his brother, and would have gladly shared the property with
him.
But William had been away twenty years, and no one had a personal
interest in him. Ten years had elapsed since he had been finally
disinherited by his father's will. Beyond a feeling of satisfaction
that justice had been done, and that there would not be a long minority
at Byrneside, the news that the eldest son had returned created no
excitement.
Messrs. Randolph & Son of Carlisle, who were business agents for half
the estates in the county, reported well of the new-comer. They had
never seen him as a boy, but they expressed themselves as agreeably
surprised that the long period he had passed knocking about among
rough people in the States had in no way affected him unfavourably. His
manners were particularly good, his appearance was altogether in his
favour, he was a true Cumberland man, tall and powerful like his father
and brother, though somewhat slighter in build.
He was accompanied by his wife. Yes, they had seen her. They had both
dined with them. They had not been previously aware that Mr. Tunstall
was married. Their client, Mr. Edgar Tunstall, had not mentioned the
fact to them. They were not prepared to give any decided opinion as
to Mrs. Tunstall. She had spoken but little, and struck them as being
nervous; probably the position was a novel one for her. There were,
they understood, no children.
Messrs. Randolph, father and son, old-fashioned practitioners, had from
the first considered the scruples of their agents in San Francisco
to be absurd. Mr. Tunstall had presented himself as soon as they had
advertised. He had produced the letters of his brother as proof of
his identity, and had offered to bring forward witnesses who had known
him for years as William Tunstall. What on earth would they have had
more than that? Mr. Tunstall had had reason already for resentment,
and it was not surprising that he had refused to set out at once
for England when he found his identity so absurdly questioned. So
they had immediately sent off the abstract of the will and a copy of
Edgar Tunstall's letter, and were much gratified when in due time Mr.
Tunstall had presented himself at their office, and had personally
announced his arrival.
It was indeed a relief to them; for, had he not arrived, various
difficulties would have arisen as to his moiety of the estate, there
being no provision in the will as to what was to be done should he
refuse to accept it. Moreover, application must have been made to the
court for the appointment of fresh guardians for the boy. Altogether
they were glad that a business that might have been troublesome was
satisfactorily settled. Mr. Tunstall, after introducing himself,
had produced the letters he had received from his brother, with the
abstract of the will and copy of the letter they had sent him.
He had said smilingly, "I don't know whether this is sufficient,
gentlemen, for I am not up in English law. If it is necessary I can, of
course, get a dozen witnesses from the States to prove that I have been
always known as William Tunstall; though I generally passed, as is the
custom there, under a variety of nicknames, such as English Bill, Stiff
Bill, and a whole lot of others. It will naturally take some little
time and great expense to get witnesses over, especially as men are
earning pretty high wages in California at present; but, of course, it
can be managed if necessary."
"I do not see that there is any necessity for it," Mr. Randolph said.
"Besides, no doubt we shall find plenty of people here to identify
you."
"I don't know that, Mr. Randolph. You see I was little more than a
boy when I went away. I had been at Rugby for years, and often did
not come home for the holidays. Twenty years have completely changed
me in appearance, and I own that I have but a very faint recollection
of Byrneside. Of course I remember the house itself, and the stables
and grounds; but as to the neighbours, I don't recollect any of them.
Neither my brother nor myself dined in the parlour when my father had
dinner parties; but it seems to me that, after all, the best proof of
my identity is my correspondence with my brother. Certainly, he would
not have been deceived by any stranger, and the fact that we exchanged
letters occasionally for some years seems to me definite proof that he
recognized me as his brother."
"Undoubtedly so," Mr. Randolph said. "That in itself is the strongest
proof that can be brought. We mentioned that in our letter to Mr.
Campbell in San Francisco. His doubts appeared to us, I may say, to be
absurd."
"Not altogether absurd, Mr. Randolph. California has been turned pretty
well topsy-turvy during the last four or five years, and he was not to
be blamed for being suspicious. May I ask you if you have come across
my letters to my brother among his papers?"
"No, we have not done so. In fact, your brother told us that he had
not preserved them, for as you were wandering about constantly the
addresses you gave were no benefit, and that beyond the fact that you
were in California he had no idea where you could be found. That is why
it became necessary to advertise for you."
"It is unfortunate that he did not keep them, Mr. Randolph, for in that
case, of course, I could have told you most of their contents, and that
would have been an additional proof of my identity."
"There is not the least occasion for it, Mr. Tunstall. We are perfectly
and entirely satisfied. Mr. Edgar's recognition of you as his brother,
your possession of his letters, the fact that you answered at once to
the advertisement in California, your knowledge of your early life
at Rugby, and so on, all tend to one plain conclusion; in fact, no
shadow of doubt was entertained by my son or myself from the first. I
congratulate you very heartily on your return, because to some extent
the very hard treatment which was dealt to you by your father, Mr.
Philip Tunstall, has now been atoned for. Of course you only received
a short abstract of your brother's will; the various properties which
fall to you are detailed in full in it. Byrneside itself goes to his
son; but against that may be set off a sum invested in good securities,
and equal to the value of the house and home park, so that you can
either build or purchase a mansion as good as Byrneside. We may tell
you also that the estates were added to in your father's time, and that
other properties have been bought by your brother, who, owing to the
death of his wife and the state of his health, has for some years led a
very secluded life, investing the greater part of his savings in land.
So that, in fact, your moiety of the estates will be quite as large
as the elder son's portion you might have expected to receive in the
ordinary course of events."
"What sort of boy is my nephew, Mr. Randolph?"
"I have seen him two or three times when I have been over at Byrneside.
Of course I did not notice him particularly, but he is a bright lad,
and promises to grow into a very fine young man. I fancy from something
his father let drop that his disposition resembles yours. He is
very fond of outdoor exercises, knows every foot of the hills round
Byrneside, and though but eleven or twelve years old he is perfectly at
home on horseback, and he is a good shot. He has, in fact, run a little
wild. His father spoke of him as being warmhearted and of excellent
impulses, but lamented that, like you, he was somewhat quick-tempered
and headstrong."
"Edgar ought not to have selected me for his guardian, Mr. Randolph."
"I said almost as much, Mr. Tunstall, when I drew out the will; but
Mr. Edgar remarked that you had doubtless got over all that long ago,
and would be able to make more allowance for him and to manage him far
better than anyone else could do."
"I shall try and merit Edgar's confidence, Mr. Randolph. I have
suffered enough from my headstrong temper, and have certainly learnt to
control it. I shall not be hard upon him, never fear."
"Are you going over to Byrneside at once, Mr. Tunstall?"
"No; I shall go up to London to-morrow morning. I want a regular outfit
before I present myself there for inspection. Besides, I would rather
that you should give notice to them at Byrneside that I have returned.
It is unpleasant to arrive at a place unannounced, and to have to
explain who you are."
"Perhaps you would like to see the will, and go through the schedule?"
"Not at all, Mr. Randolph. There will be plenty of time for that after
my return."
"You will excuse my asking if you want any money for present use, Mr.
Tunstall?"
"No, thank you; I am amply provided. I was doing very well at the
diggings when your letters called me away, and I have plenty of cash
for present purposes."
"You will, I hope, dine with us to-day, Mr. Tunstall."
"I thank you. I should have been very happy, but I have my wife with
me. I have left her at the 'Bull.'"
"Oh, indeed! I was not aware--"
"That I was married? Yes, I have been married for some years. I did not
think it necessary to mention it to Edgar, as he would only have used
it as an additional argument why I should accept his generous offers."
"We shall be very glad, Mrs. Randolph and myself, if you will bring
Mrs. Tunstall with you."
And so Mrs. Tunstall came. She was a dark woman, and, as Mr. Randolph
and his wife agreed, was probably of Mexican or Spanish blood, and
spoke English with a strange accent. She had evidently at one time
been strikingly pretty, though now faded. She had rather a worn, hard
expression on her face, and impressed Mr. Randolph, his wife, son, and
daughter-in-law less favourably than the lawyer had thought it right to
say to those who made inquiries about her; but she had, as they said,
spoken but little, and had seemed somewhat nervous and ill at ease.
Mr. Tunstall did not appear for some time at Byrneside. He went down to
Rugby to see his nephew, who had, in accordance with his father's wish,
been placed there a month or two after his death. The holidays were
to begin a week later, and Hugh was delighted when his uncle told him
that he and his aunt were thinking of going to the Continent for a few
months before settling down at Byrneside, and would take him with them.
Hugh was very much pleased with his new relative. "He is a splendid
fellow," he told his school-boy friends. "Awful jolly to talk to,
and has been doing all sorts of things--fighting Indians, and hunting
buffalo, and working in the gold diggings. Of course he didn't tell me
much about them; there wasn't time for that. He tipped me a couple of
sovs. I am sure we shall get on first-rate together." And so during the
summer holidays Hugh travelled with his uncle and aunt in Switzerland
and Italy. He did not very much like his aunt. She seemed to try to
be kind to him, and yet he thought she did not like him. His uncle had
taken him about everywhere, and had told him lots of splendid yarns.
At Christmas they would be all together at Byrneside. His uncle had
been very much interested in the place, and was never tired of his
talk about his rambles there. He remembered the pool where his father
had told him they both used to fish as boys, and about Harry Gowan the
fisherman who used to go out in his boat, and who was with them when
that storm suddenly broke when the boat was wrecked on the island and
they were all nearly drowned. He was very glad to hear that Gowan was
still alive; and that James Wilson, who was then under stableman and
used to look after their ponies, was now coachman; and that Sam, the
gardener's boy who used to show them where the birds' nests were, was
now head-gardener; and that Mr. Holbeach the vicar was still alive,
and so was his sister Miss Elizabeth; and that, in fact, he remembered
quite well all the people who had been there when he was a boy.
Altogether it had been a glorious holiday.
His uncle and aunt returned with him when it was over, the former
saying he had had enough of travelling for the present, and instead of
being away, as he had intended, for another couple of months he should
go down home at once. They went with him as far as Rugby, dropped him
there, and then journeyed north. On their arrival at Byrneside, where
they had not been expected, Mr. Tunstall soon made himself extremely
popular. Scarcely had they entered the house when he sent out for James
the coachman, and greeted him with the greatest heartiness.
"I should not have known you, James," he said, "and I don't suppose you
would have known me?"
"No, sir; I cannot say as I should. You were only a slip of a lad then,
though you didn't think yourself so. No, I should not have known you a
bit."
"Twenty years makes a lot of difference, Jim. Ah, we had good fun in
those days! Don't you remember that day's ratting we had when the big
stack was pulled down, and how one of them bit you in the ear, and how
you holloaed?"
"I remember that, sir. Mr. Edgar has often laughed with me about it."
"And you remember how my poor brother and I dressed up in sheets once,
and nearly scared you out of your life, Jim?"
"Ay, ay; I mind that too, sir. That wasn't a fair joke, that wasn't."
"No, that wasn't fair, Jim. Ah! well, I am past such pranks now. Well,
I am very glad to see you again after all these years, and to find
you well. I hear that Sam is still about the old place, and is now
head-gardener. You may as well come out and help me find him while Mrs.
Tunstall is taking off her things."
Sam was soon found, and was as delighted as James at Mr. Tunstall's
recollection of some of their bird-nesting exploits. After a long chat
with him, Mr. Tunstall returned to the house, where a meal was already
prepared.
"You need not wait," he said, after the butler had handed the dishes.
"I have not been accustomed to have a man-servant behind my chair for
the last twenty years, and can do without it now."
He laid down his knife and fork with an air of relief as the door
closed behind the servant.
"Well, Lola," he said in Spanish, "everything has gone off well."
"Yes," she said, "I suppose it has," in the same language. "It is all
very oppressive. I wish we were back in California again."
"You used to be always grumbling there," he said savagely. "I was
always away from you, and altogether you were the most ill-used woman
in the world. Now you have got everything a woman could want. A grand
house, and carriages, and horses; the garden and park. What can you
want more?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "I shall get accustomed to it in time," she
said, "but so far I do not like it. It is all stiff and cold. I would
rather have a little hacienda down on the Del Norte, with a hammock
to swing in, and a cigarette between my lips, and a horse to take a
scamper on if I am disposed, and you with me, than live in this dreary
palace."
"Baby! you will get accustomed to it in time, and you can have a
hammock here if you like, though it is not often that it is warm enough
to use it. And you can smoke cigarettes all day. It would shock them if
you were an Englishwoman, but in a Mexican they will think it right and
proper enough. And you have got your guitar with you, so you can have
most of your pleasures; and as for the heat, there is sure to be some
big glass houses where they grow fruit and flowers, and you can have
one of them fitted up with Mexican plants, and hang your hammock there;
and it won't need a very long stretch of imagination to fancy that you
are at your hacienda on the Del Norte."
"If you can manage that it will be nice," the woman said.
"Anything can be managed in this country when we have got money to pay
for it."
"At any rate it will be a comfort to know that there is no fear of your
being shot here. Every time you went away from me, if it was only for
a week or two, I knew I might never see you again, and that you might
get shot by some of those drunken miners. Well, I shall be free of all
that now, and I own that I was wrong to grumble. I shall be happy here
with you, and I see that it was indeed fortunate that you found those
papers on the body of the man you came across dead in the woods."
She looked closely at him as she spoke.
"Well, that is a subject that there is no use talking about, Lola. It
was a slice of luck; but there is an English proverb, that walls have
ears, and it is much better that you should try and forget the past.
Remember only that I am William Tunstall, who has come back here after
being away twenty years."
She nodded. "I shall not forget it. You know, you always said I was
a splendid actress, and many a fool with more dollars than wit have I
lured on, and got to play with you in the old days at Santa Fé."
"There, there, drop it, Lola," he said; "the less we have of old
memories the better. Now we will have the servants in, or they will
begin to think we have gone to sleep over our meal." And he struck the
bell which the butler, when he went out, had placed on the table beside
him.
"Have you been over the house?" he asked when they were alone again.
"Not over it all. The old woman--she called herself the
housekeeper--showed me a great room which she said was the
drawing-room, and a pretty little room which had been her mistress's
boudoir, and another room full of books, and a gallery with a lot of
ugly pictures in it, and the bed-room that is to be ours, and a lot of
others opening out of it."
"Well, I will go over them now with you, Lola. Of course I am supposed
to know them all. Ah! this is the boudoir. Well, I am sure you can be
comfortable here, Lola. Those chairs are as soft and easy as a hammock.
This will be your sanctum, and you can lounge and smoke, and play
your guitar to your heart's content. Yes, this is a fine drawing-room,
but it is a deal too large for two of us; though in summer, with the
windows all open, I daresay it is pleasant enough." Having made a
tour of the rooms that had been shown Lola, they came down to the hall
again.
"Now let us stroll out into the garden," he said. "You will like
that." He lit a cigar, and Lola a cigarette. The latter was unfeignedly
delighted with the masses of flowers and the beautifully kept lawns,
and the views from the terrace, with a stretch of fair country, and the
sea sparkling in the sunshine two miles away.
"Here comes the head-gardener, Lola, my old friend. This is Sam, Lola,"
he said, as the gardener came up and touched his hat. "You know you
have heard me speak of him. My wife is delighted with the garden, Sam.
She has never seen an English garden before."
"It is past its best now, sir. You should have seen it two months ago."
"I don't think it could be more beautiful," Lola said; "there is
nothing like this in my country. We have gardens with many flowers, but
not grass like this, so smooth and so level. Does it grow no higher?"
"Oh, it grows fast enough, and a good deal too fast to please us, and
has to be cut twice a week."
"I see you are looking surprised at my wife smoking," William Tunstall
said with a smile. "In her country all ladies smoke. Show her the
green-houses; I think they will surprise her even more than the
garden."
The long ranges of green-houses were visited, and Sam was gratified
at his new mistress's delight at the flowers, many of which she
recognized, and still more at the fruit--the grapes covering the roofs
with black and yellow bunches; the peaches and nectarines nestling
against the walls.
"The early sorts are all over," Sam said; "but I made a shift to keep
these back, though I did not think there was much chance of any but the
grapes being here when you got back, as we heard that you would not be
home much before Christmas."
"We changed our mind, you see, Sam, and I am glad we did, for if
we had come then, Mrs. Tunstall would have been frightened at the
cold and bleakness. I'll tell you what I want done, Sam. I want this
conservatory next the house filled as much as possible with Mexican
and South American plants. Of course, you can put palms and other
things that will stand heat along with them. I want the stages cleared
away, and the place made to look as much like a room as possible. Mrs.
Tunstall will use it as a sitting-room."
"I think we shall have to put another row of pipes in, Mr. William.
Those plants will want more heat than we have got here."
"Then we must put them in. My wife will not care how hot it is, but of
course we don't want tropical heat. I should put some rockery down the
side here to hide the pipes, and in the centre we will have a fountain
with water plants, a foot or two below the level of the floor, and a
low bank of ferns round. That is the only change, as far as I can see,
that we shall want in the house. I shall be going over to Carlisle
in a day or two, and I'll arrange with somebody there to make the
alterations."
"Very well, Mr. William, if you will get some masons to do the rockery
and fountain, I can answer for the rest; but I think I shall need a
good many fresh plants. We are not very strong in hot subjects. Mr.
Edgar never cared for them much."
"If you will make out a list of what you want, and tell me who is the
best man to send to, Sam, I will order them as soon as you are ready to
put them in."
And so, when Hugh returned at Christmas for the holidays, he was
astonished at finding his aunt swinging in a hammock, smoking a
cigarette, slung near a sparkling little fountain, and surrounded by
semi-tropical plants. The smoking did not surprise him, for he had
often seen her with a cigarette during their trip together; but the
transformation of the conservatory astonished him.
"Well, Hugh, what do you think of it?" she asked, smiling at his
surprise.
"It is beautiful!" he said; "it isn't like a green-house. It is just
like a bit out of a foreign country."
"That is what we tried to make it, Hugh. You see, on the side next to
the house where there is a wall, we have had a Mexican view painted
with a blue sky, such as we have there, and mountains, and a village
at the foot of the hills. As I lie here I can fancy myself back again,
if I don't look up at the sashes overhead. Oh, how I wish one could
do without them, and that it could be covered with one great sheet of
glass!"
"It would be better," Hugh admitted, "but it is stunning as it is.
Uncle told me, as he drove me over from Carlisle, that he had been
altering the conservatory, and making it a sort of sitting-room for
you, but I never thought that it would be like this. What are those
plants growing on the rocks?"
"Those are American aloes, they are one of our most useful plants,
Hugh. They have strong fibres which we use for string, and they make
a drink out of the juice fermented; it is called pulque, and is our
national drink, though of late years people drink spirits too, which
are bad for them, and make them quarrelsome."
During the holidays Hugh got over his former dislike for his aunt,
and came to like her more than his uncle. She was always kind and
pleasant with him, while he found that, although his uncle at times
was very friendly, his temper was uncertain. The want of some regular
occupation, and the absence of anything like excitement, told heavily
upon a man accustomed to both. At first there was the interest in
playing his part: of meeting people who had known him in his boyhood,
of receiving and returning the visits of the few resident gentry within
a circuit of ten miles, of avoiding mistakes and evading dangers; but
all this was so easy that he soon tired of it. He had tried to make
Lola contented, and yet her lazy contentment with her surroundings
irritated him.
She had created a good impression upon the ladies who had called.
The expression of her face had softened since her first visit to
Carlisle, and the nervous expression that had struck Mr. Randolph
then had disappeared. Her slight accent, and the foreign style of her
dress, were interesting novelties to her visitors, and after the first
dinner-party given in their honour, at which she appeared in a dress
of dull gold with a profusion of rich black lace, she was pronounced
charming. Her husband, too, was considered to be an acquisition to the
county. Everyone had expected that he would have returned, after so
long an absence, rough and unpolished, whereas his manners were quiet
and courteous.
He was perhaps less popular among the sturdy Cumberland squires than
with their wives. He did not hunt; he did not shoot. "I should have
thought," one of his neighbours said to him, "that everyone who had
been living a rough life in the States would have been a good shot."
"A good many of us are good shots, perhaps most of us, but it is with
the pistol and rifle. Shot-guns are not of much use when you have a
party of Red-skins yelling and shooting round you, and it is not a
handy weapon to go and fetch when a man draws a revolver on you. As to
shooting little birds, it may be done by men who live on their farms
and like an occasional change from the bacon and tinned meat that they
live on from year's end to year's end. Out there a hunter is a man who
shoots game--I mean deer and buffalo and bear and other animals--for
the sake of their skins, although, of course, he does use the meat
of such as are eatable. With us a good shot means a man who can put
a ball into a Red-skin's body at five hundred yards certain, and who
with a pistol can knock a pipe out of a man's mouth ten yards away,
twenty times following; and it isn't only straightness of shooting, but
quickness of handling, that is necessary. A man has to draw, and cock,
and fire, in an instant. The twinkling of an eye makes the difference
of life or death.
"Oh, yes! I am a good shot, but not in your way. I went away from here
too young to get to care about tramping over the country all day to
shoot a dozen or two of birds, and I have never been in the way of
learning to like it since. I wish I had, for it seems an important
part of country life here, and I know I shall never be considered as a
credit to the county unless I spend half my time in winter riding after
foxes or tramping after birds; but I am afraid I am too old now ever
to take to those sports. I heartily wish I could, for I find it dull
having no pursuit. When a man has been earning his living by hunting,
or gold digging, or prospecting for mines all his life, he finds it
hard to get up in the morning and know that there is nothing for him
to do but just to look round the garden or to go out for a drive merely
for the sake of driving."
When summer came Mr. Tunstall found some amusements to his taste. If
there was a wrestling match anywhere in the county or in Westmoreland
he would be present, and he became a regular attendant at all the
race-courses in the north of England. He did not bet. As he said to a
sporting neighbour, who always had a ten-pound note on the principal
races, "I like to bet when the chances are even, or when I can match my
skill against another man's; but in this horse-racing you are risking
your money against those who know more than you do. Unless you are
up to all the tricks and dodges, you have no more chance of winning
than a man has who gambles with a cheat who plays with marked cards. I
like to go because it is an excitement; besides, at most of the large
meetings there is a little gambling in the evening. In Mexico and
California everyone gambles more or less. It is one of the few ways of
spending money, and I like a game occasionally." The result was that
Mr. Tunstall was seldom at home during the summer.
When Hugh came home his aunt said: "I have been talking to your uncle
about you, and he does not care about going away this year. He has
taken to have an interest in horse-racing. Of course it is a dull life
for him here after leading an active one for so many years, and I am
very glad he has found something to interest him."
"I should think that it is very dull for you, aunt."
"I am accustomed to be alone, Hugh. In countries where every man has
to earn his living, women cannot expect to have their husbands always
with them. They may be away a month at a time up in the mountains, or
at the mines, or hunting in the plains. I am quite accustomed to that.
But I was going to talk about you. I should like a change, and you and
I will go away where we like. Not, of course, to travel about as we did
last year, but to any seaside place you would like to go to. We need
not stop all the time at one, but can go to three or four of them. I
have been getting some books about them lately, and I think it would be
most pleasant to go down to Devonshire. There seem to be lots of pretty
watering-places there, and the climate is warmer than in the towns on
the east coast."
"I should like it very much, aunt; but I should like a fortnight here
first, if you don't mind. My pony wants exercise terribly, Jim says.
He has been out at grass for months now; besides, I shall forget how to
ride if I don't have some practice."
So for the next fortnight Hugh was out from morning until night either
riding or sailing with Gowan, and then he went south with his aunt
and spent the rest of his holidays in Devonshire and Cornwall. He had
a delightful time of it, his aunt allowing him to do just as he liked
in the way of sailing and going out excursions. She always took rooms
overlooking the sea, and was well content to sit all day at the open
window; seldom moving until towards evening, when she would go out
for a stroll with Hugh. Occasionally she would take long drives with
him in a pony-carriage; but she seldom proposed these expeditions. As
Hugh several times met with schoolfellows, and always struck up an
acquaintance a few hours after arriving at a place with some of the
boatmen and fishermen, he never found it dull. At first he was disposed
to pity his aunt and to urge her to go out with him; but she assured
him that she was quite contented to be alone, and to enjoy the sight of
the sea and to breathe the balmy air.
"I have not enjoyed myself so much, Hugh," she said when the holidays
were drawing to a close, "since I was a girl."
"I am awfully glad of that, aunt. I have enjoyed myself tremendously;
but it always seems to me that it must be dull for you."
"You English never seem to be happy unless you are exerting yourselves,
Hugh; but that is not our idea of happiness. People in warm climates
find their pleasure in sitting still, in going out after the heat of
the day is over for a promenade, and in listening to the music, just
as we have been doing here. Besides it has been a pleasure to me to see
that you have been happy."
When the summer holidays had passed away, Hugh returned to Rugby, and
Lola went back to Cumberland.
[Illustration]