It was a clear, windy day of autumn in the first week of their home-coming,—the very day, so it chanced, on which Merrylips was eight years old. She was sitting on the flagstones of the west terrace of Walsover, eating a crisp apple and warding off the caresses of three favorite hounds, Fox and Shag and Silver, while she watched her brothers playing at bowls.
They had thrown off their doublets in the heat of the game, and their voices rang high and boyish.
"Fairly cast!"
"A hit! A hit!"
Indeed, they were no more than boys, those three big brothers. Tall Longkin himself, for all his swagger and the rapier that he sometimes wore, was scarcely eighteen. Munn, a good lad in the saddle but a dullard at his book, was three years younger, and Flip, with the curly pate, was not yet turned thirteen.
But to Merrylips they were almost men and heroes who had gone out into the world, though it was but the world of Winchester School and of Oxford. With all her heart she loved and believed in them, those tall brothers. How happy she felt to be seated near them, pillowed among the dogs and munching her apple, where at any moment she could catch Munn's eyes or answer Flip's smile! She thought that she should be happy to sit thus forever.
While she watched, the game came to an end with a notable strong cast from Longkin that made her clap her hands and cry, "Oh, brave!"
Then the three, laughing and wiping their hot foreheads on their shirt-sleeves, came sauntering to the spot where Merrylips sat and flung themselves down beside her among the dogs.
"Give me a bite of thine apple, little greedy-chaps!" said Munn, and cast his arm about Merrylips' neck and drew her to him.
"To-morrow, lads," said Longkin, who was stretched at his ease with his head upon the hound Silver, "say, shall we go angling in Walsover mead?"