'Can you withstand that flattering compliment, Wilmet?' said Felix, laughing. 'I can't!'
'He is very welcome,' said Wilmet; 'only, Lance, he must not stay the night, for there really is not room for another mouse.'
The little girls had heard so much about Bill Harewood, that they were much excited; but their sympathy kindly compensated for the lack of that of the elder brothers. Fulbert pronounced that a cathedral chorister could never be any great shakes; and Clement could not forgive one who had been frivolous enough to be distracted by a jackdaw; but Lance, trusting to his friend's personal attractions to overcome all prejudice, trotted blithely off to the organist-schoolmaster, to beg the loan of the music, and received a promise of a practice in church in the evening. Meantime, he begged Clement to play the accompaniment for him on the old piano. Neither boy knew that it had been scarcely opened since their father's hand had last lingered fondly upon it. Music had been found to excite their mother to tears; Geraldine resembled Fulbert in unmusicalness, and Wilmet had depended on school, the brothers on their choir-practice, so that the sound was like a new thing in the house; nor was any one prepared either for the superiority of Clement's playing, or for the exceeding beauty and sweetness of Lance's singing. No one who appreciated the rare quality of his high notes wondered that he was indispensable; Geraldine could hardly believe that the clear exquisite proclamation, that came floating as from an angel voice, could really come from the little, slight, grubby, dusty urchin, who stood with clasped hands and uplifted face; and Clement himself—though deferring the communication till Lance was absent, lest it should make him vain—confided to Wilmet that they had no such voice at St Matthew's, and it was a shame to waste him on Anglicans.
Wilmet hardly entered into this enormity. She had made a discovery which interested her infinitely more. Little Theodore, hitherto so inanimate, had sat up, listened, looked with a dawning of expression in the eyes that had hitherto been clear and meaningless as blue porcelain, and as the music ceased, his inarticulate hummings continued the same tune. Could it be that the key to the dormant senses was found? His eyes turned to the piano, and his finger pointed to it as soon as he found himself in the room with it, and the airs he heard were continually reproduced in his murmuring sounds; that 'How beautiful!' which had first awakened the gleam—his own birth-day anthem—being sure to recur at sight of Lance; while a doleful Irish croon, Sibby's regular lullaby, always served for her, and the 'Hardy Norseman' for Felix, who had sometimes whistled it to him. Wilmet spent every available moment in awaking the smile on the little waxen face that had never responded before; it seemed to be just the cheering hope she needed to revive her spirits, only she was almost ready to renounce her journey with Alda for the sake of cultivating the new-found faculty.
No one would permit this; and indeed, so far from waiting to be exhibited to Lance's friend, the two sisters received their billet de route on the very day he was expected; and there was no appeal, since a housekeeper was to travel from Centry, who would take charge of them to London, whence they would go down with Mr. Underwood. Poor Wilmet was much dismayed at leaving Geraldine to what they both regarded as the unprecedented invasion of a strange boy; indeed, the whole charge made Cherry's heart quail, though she said little of her fears, knowing the importance of Wilmet's having and enjoying her holiday; and Mr. Audley promised extra aid in keeping order among the boys.
But as they came in that evening from the practice at the church, to which Clement had insisted on their coming to hear Lance, Mr. Audley beckoned Felix to his room with the words, 'There's a thing I want to talk over with you.'
Felix recollected those ominous words to Mr. Underwood, and stood warming his hands in dread of what might be coming. It was all he feared.
'I wanted to say—I wanted to tell you—' began Mr. Audley. 'I would not have chosen this time, but that I think it may save Wilmet something to be able to tell her friends that the present arrangement is to cease.'
'Wilmet!' exclaimed Felix; then bethinking himself. 'Was that what Tom Underwood meant? But you will not trouble yourself about such rubbish.'
'Well, you see,' began the Curate, with heightening colour, 'it can't be denied that your sister has grown up, and that things are changed.'