'Not my idol, but my prop and companion for life.'
'Your Lord Gerald,' laughed Felix, as she walked triumphantly round the room, perhaps her first unnecessary promenade since she was seven years old.
'This is just the time I didn't expect you,' said Wilmet; 'is the seven o'clock train put on again?'
'We didn't come by the train.' And Felix and Cherry smiled at one another as they detected that Wilmet's economical soul was vexed. 'I wanted Lance to see his doctor again, and the railway seems so bad for his head, that I drove.'
'How very kind!' exclaimed Wilmet.
'I am afraid I have not managed it well. I would not make an appointment, lest it should be a glaring day; so Manby was out, and we could only leave a message before going to the precincts. Lance was in wild spirits, and the boys gave him such an uproarious welcome, that old Canon Burley sent in to know what was the matter, and was told it was only little Underwood come back. He dined with us, but I am afraid I was off guard, for I never thought of his going and taking a place in the Cathedral.'
'I should think not!' said Wilmet, 'except that it is in the nature of boys to be provoking, even about Church-going. Then it has knocked him up.'
'He was forced to come out in the Psalms; and Poulter, one of the lay-vicars, got anxious about him, and went after him when the Lesson began, found him with his head down on the table in the sacristy, and thought he had fainted, but he was only crying and entirely done up. Manby came just as Poulter brought him in, and gave him a proper good lecture.'
'A very good thing,' said Wilmet, 'if one could only get him to believe there is any need of care when his head is not actually painful. What did Mr. Manby think of him?'
'He says he is as well as could reasonably be hoped—quite recovered from the fever; but the sun-stroke was as severe as any he has seen in England, and coming on the top of all that overwork, both study and music, it has left an amount of irritability and excitability of brain that must not be trifled with. He made poor Lance confess all the little experiments he has been trying on himself, and ordered him to leave off whatever he is about at the first threatening of dizziness or pain.'