“Won’t you take me to see the old man?”
“I tried to tell her about Jerry’s house,” explained Leon; “and she’s a little mixed up about it.”
“Nothing unusual,” answered the doctor. “Is it Jerry that you mean, Gyp?”
“Yes, I want to go to see his bird.”
“Some day, perhaps, when you are older; but it is too far for you to go now, for you would get all tired out. Now you mustn’t tease any more, but run away and play with Mouse, because I want to talk to Leon.” And as Gyp walked away, he dismissed the matter from his mind although, as it appeared later, the young lady did not.
Dr. Flemming devoted the next half hour to entertaining his guest, and their pleasant, rambling talk of Tom Brown, and the football game, and the boys, and the winter sports of the school gave Leon an even greater admiration for the doctor than he had felt before, and made him forget that he was a prisoner for some days. The doctor, on his side, was making every effort to make the time pass pleasantly, for not only did he admire the straightforward manliness of his pupil, but he was anxious to remove the memory of their recent interview in the study when, against his own will, he had been forced to punish the lad for a breach of discipline which, in the eyes of the school, was more than justified by its cause. He succeeded so well that, when Lieutenant Wilde came into the room, he found them discussing the prospect for the spring regatta with the eagerness and good-fellowship of a pair of children; and Leon was almost sorry when Mrs. Flemming appeared, a little later, to tell them that dinner was ready.
“Now, auntie,” said Lieutenant Wilde, as he rose; “as I said to you this morning, we don’t want this young man to eat his Thanksgiving dinner, in solitary state before the fire; so, with his permission, I’ll escort him to the table.” And before Leon had time to object, he was picked up bodily and carried out into the next room, where Lieutenant Wilde put him down in a chair between himself and Mrs. Flemming.
It was one of the merriest dinners that Leon had ever known, and the informality was decidedly increased by Gyp, who insisted that Mouse, in all her elegance, should come to the table and sit in a high chair by the side of her small mistress, where she was regaled on many a dainty morsel which she received and swallowed with a stolid unconcern, apparently quite unconscious of the fact that her pink bonnet had slipped off from her ear, and worked its way around until the eye on the other side was in a state of complete eclipse.
Then they went back to the parlor again, and while Mrs. Flemming drew together the heavy curtains to shut out the gathering twilight and the fine, soft snow which was beginning to fall, the doctor piled the sticks high on the andirons, and they watched the slow, curling tongues of blue flame work their way up among them, and then all at once turn to the bright red blaze which lighted all the room. To Leon, after two months in the large boarding-house, the quiet, homelike air of the place was indescribably pleasant; and he lay back in his deep chair, saying little, but watching the flickering light and listening to the conversation around him. Lieutenant Wilde sat beside him, resting one elbow on the arm of Leon’s chair. Suddenly he turned to the boy.
“Homesick or sleepy, Leon?”