'Oh, nobody can be so much to her as you.'
'Poor Ave!' said Leonard, tenderly. 'And look here, this is my father's watch, and she made me this chain of my mother's hair. And they have given me a photograph of my mother's picture; Henry had it done long ago, but thought it would upset me to give it before I went away. If he could but have guessed how I lay and wished for one!'
'Those are the things one never can guess, even when one would give worlds to do so.'
'You—O, Miss May, you always know the thing that is comfortable.'
'Well,' said Ethel, 'what will be comfortable now is that you should be the man above being affronted by other people's nonsense—the only way to show we did not all spoil each other at Coombe. Now, here is Woodstock for you, and tell me if this be not your Cidaris. Oh, and we have found out the name of your funny spiked shell.'
Ten minutes of palaeontology ensued; and she was leading the way back to the drawing-room, when he exclaimed, 'Have you heard about the match, Miss May?'
'Match? Oh, the cricket match?'
'Stoneborough against All England, on St. Matthew's Day, so I shall have got my hand in.'
'All England meaning every one that can be scraped up that is not Stoneborough,' returned Ethel. 'George Larkins has been over here canvassing Tom and Aubrey. But you can't be going to play, Leonard; papa does not half like it for Aubrey.'
'Perhaps not for Aubrey,' said Leonard; 'but I am as well as ever, and luckily they can't make up a decent eleven without me. You will come and see us, Miss May? I'll find you the jolliest place between the old lime and the cloister door.'