With his forehead against the window, Armine watched and did his utmost to repress the eagerness that seemed to irritate his brother, and at last gave vent to an irrepressible hurrah.
“There they are! Cecil has got his sister! Oh! and there she is! Babie—holding on to mother, and that must be Mrs. Evelyn with Fordham—and there’s Elf making up already to the Doctor! Aren’t you coming down, Jock?”
“Not I! I don’t want to see you make a fool of yourself before everybody!—I say—you’ll have to come up stairs again, you know! Shut the door I say!”—shouted Jock, as he found Armine deaf to all his expostulations, and then getting up, he banged it himself, and then shuffling back to the sofa, put his hands over his face and exclaimed, “There! What an eternal brute I am!”
A few moments more and the door was open again, and Cecil, with his arm round his sister, thrust her forwards, exclaiming—“Here he is, Syd.”
Jock had recovered his gentlemanly manners enough to shake hands courteously, as well as to receive and return Babie’s kiss, when she and Armine staggered in together, reeling under their weight of delight. Janet kissed him too, and then, scanning both brothers, observed to her mother—
“I think Lucas is the more altered of the two.” In which sentiment Elvira seemed to agree, for she put her hands behind her and exclaimed—
“O Jock, you do look such a fright; I never knew how like Janet you were!”
“You are letting every one know what a spiteful little Elf you can be,” returned Janet, indignantly. “Can’t you give poor Jock a kinder greeting?”
Whereupon the Elf put on a cunning look of innocence and said—
“I didn’t know it was unkind to say he was like you, Janet.”