'Felix, promise to do what I want!'
'Felix, do pray buy me some Turkish delight!'
'Felix, I do want the big spotty horse.'
Such shouts and insinuations, all deserving the epithet of the first, pursued Felix as he entered a room, small, and with all the contents faded and worn, but with an air of having been once tasteful, and still made the best of. Contents we say advisedly, meaning not merely the furniture but the inmates, namely, the pale wan fragile mother, working, but with the baby on her knee, and looking as if care and toil had brought her to skin and bone, though still with sweet eyes and a lovely smile; the father, tall and picturesque, with straight handsome features, but with a hectic colour, wasted cheek, and lustrous eye, that were sad earnests of the future. He was still under forty, his wife some years less; and elder than either in its expression of wasted suffering was the countenance of the little girl of thirteen years old who lay on the sofa, with pencil, paper, and book, her face with her mother's features exaggerated into a look at once keen and patient, all three forming a sad contrast to the solid exuberant health on the other side the door.
Truly the boy who entered was a picture of sturdy English vigour, stout-limbed, rosy faced, clear eyed, open, and straightforward looking, perhaps a little clumsy with the clumsiness of sixteen, especially when conscience required tearing spirits to be subdued to the endurance of the feeble. It was, however, a bright congratulating look that met him from the trio. The little girl started up: 'Your sovereign's come, Felix!'
The father showed his transparent-looking white teeth in a merry laugh. 'Here are the galleons, you boy named in a lucky hour! How many times have you spent them in fancy?'
The mother held up the letter, addressed to Master Felix Chester Underwood, No. 8, St. Oswald's Buildings, Bexley, and smiled as she said, 'Is it all right, my boy?'
'They want me to open it outside, Mamma!—Come, White-heart, we want you at the council.'
And putting his arm round his little sister Geraldine's waist, while she took up her small crutch, Felix disappeared with her, the mother looking wistfully after them, the father giving something between a laugh and a sigh.
'Then you decide against speaking to him,' said Mrs. Underwood.