'Achilles, I beg your pardon.'
'He never would come out,' said Angela; 'he came through the whitewash after the measles.'
'I wonder what the present inhabitants think of him,' said Cherry. 'One comfort is, if he is a bogy now, they may show him some day as an early effort of Sir Edgar Underwood, President of the Royal Academy.'
'Oh dear! I must go!' cried Alice. 'I only came to fetch a pattern for Aunt Maria, and she is waiting for it; but you are all so delightful here.'
'What pretty little thing have you picked up there?' asked Edgar, as she went.
'Have we not told you of Miss Pearson's niece?'
'You should take her likeness, Cherry, as a relief from the classically severe.'
Cherry opened her portfolio, and showed two or three water-coloured drawings of the graceful little head and piquant features. Edgar criticised, and promised a lesson; and the sitter, nothing loth, though rather coy, was caught. She blushed and smiled, and took exception at little personalities, and laughed her forgiveness, going through a play of countenance very perplexing to the pupil, but much relished by the master, as he called up the pout and smile by turns, and played with her little airs.
He took Alda back on Monday, but promised to come home for Christmas, and kept his word. Perhaps the Renville wirthschaft afforded less contrast with home than did the Underwood ménage; and, in spite of the Philistine furniture, the rooms in the High Street agreed better with his tastes than the old house in St. Oswald's Buildings. He was above objecting to the shop; and whereas Clement carefully avoided the public precincts, he was often there, hunting up books, reading newspapers, gossiping with Mr. Froggatt or with Redstone, and always ensuring himself a welcome by the free bright sweetness of his manner and his amusing talk.
It was a prosperous winter; Felix, as partner and acknowledged editor, was in a more comfortable position both as to income and authority. Other matters were going well. Fulbert, to the general surprise, turned out a capital letter-writer, and sent home excellent accounts of himself, working heartily in a situation in the post-office, which Mr. Audley's Somerville interest had managed to secure for him. Moreover, all close scholarships had not been abolished, and Felix's opportunities in the newspaper line had enabled him to discover one at St. Cadoc's, a small college at Cambridge, to be competed for by the natives of the county where Clement had fortunately been born. A letter to the parish clerk of Vale Leston, to ask for the baptismal register of Edward Clement Underwood, produced a reply from a well-remembered old Abednego Tripp, who declared himself 'horned and rejoiced' at hearing from Master Felix, and at being able to do anything for one of the Reverend Mr. Edward's sons. The competition was not very severe; Clement obtained the scholarship, and therewith his maintenance for three years to come; and he was at the same time able to exercise a bit of patronage on his sisters' behalf, more gratifying to his own feelings than theirs. Mr. Fulmort's unmarried sisters had lived in the country with a former governess, until on the death of the elder, the survivor decided on employing her very considerable fortune in establishing a school where girls of small means might be prepared for becoming first-rate governesses, with special openings for the daughters of poor clergy and of missionaries.