To Bevis this visit was elysium. All his experiences of young people had been confined to school, and he had never before spent such a holiday.
"It's grand to be in a home like this!" he said, once, to Mavis. "I can't help thinking, sometimes, how different life would have been to me if my mother had lived. It's hard not to have even the slightest remembrance of her. Suppose she had been here now and living at 'The Warren'!"
"You'll go there yourself some day."
"Perhaps. It'll be rather a forlorn business though, being in that big house with only a pack of servants. I believe I'll take a voyage round the world in a yacht. The fact is I can't quite see my future. I'm going to Cambridge, but after that things are vague. I always had dreams of a profession, but the lawyers say I ought to settle down on the estate. What's a fellow to do?"
"I wouldn't worry your head about it yet. There'll be plenty of time to think things over while you're at College," counselled Mavis. "Enjoy your holidays at any rate."
"No mistake about that. I'm having the luck of my life!"
It was only to Mavis's sympathetic ear that Bevis poured out these confidences. With Merle he was on different terms. He called her 'Soeurette' (little sister) and was always ready for some joke with her. She and Clive together led him a lively time, as well as keeping him busy helping them to make boxes, build a boat, and several other joinering enterprises.
"It does Bevis all the good in the world to be teased!" declared Merle.
"He certainly gets it, then!" laughed Mavis.
One special grievance had Merle. Bevis had devoted some of his spare time at Shelton College to taking motoring lessons, for he hoped to buy a car some day, and he could now drive so well that Dr. Ramsay trusted him at the steering-wheel.