CHAPTER V. — A HAPPY SPRITE
Such trifles will their hearts engage,
A shell, a flower, a feather;
If none of these, a cup of joy
It is to be together.—ISAAC WILLIAMS.
A retired soldier, living with his sister in a watering-place, is apt to form to himself regular habits, of which one of the most regular is the walking to the station in quest of his newspaper. Here, then, it was that the tall, grey-haired, white-moustached General Mohun beheld, emerging on the platform, a slight figure in a grey suit, bag in hand, accompanied by a pretty pink-cheeked, fair-haired, knicker-bockered little boy, whose air of content and elation at being father’s companion made his sapphire eyes goodly to behold.
“Mr. Underwood! I am glad to see you.”
“I thought I would run down and look at the house you were so good as to mention for my sister, and let this chap have a smell of the sea.”
There was a contention between General Mohun’s hospitality and Lancelot’s intention of leaving his bag at the railway hotel, but the former gained the day, the more easily because there was an assurance that the nephew who slept at Miss Mohun’s for the sake of his day-school would take little Felix Underwood under his protection, and show him his curiosities. The boy’s eyes grew round, and he exclaimed—
“Foolish guillemots’ eggs?”
“He is in the egg stage,” said his father, smiling.
“I won’t answer for guillemots,” said the General, “but nothing seems to come amiss to Fergus, though his chief turn is for stones.”