‘Unless he should upset Sophy into the lake.’
‘He can’t do that, the rope is too short. But is not he very much improved? He has quite lost his imperious manner towards her.’
‘Nothing like school for making a boy behave himself to his sisters.’
‘Exactly, as I learnt by experience long ago. I am glad William did not see him till he had learnt to be agreeable. How he does admire him!’
‘You’ll never make anything of that sketch; the mountain is humpbacked, and the face of that precipice is exactly like Colonel Bury;’ and he caught up a pencil to help out the resemblance with nostril and eyebrow.
‘For shame, to be so mischievous; such a great boy as you.’
‘Well, we all came out here to be great boys, didn’t we? I am sure you look a dozen years younger than when I last saw you, Mrs. Grandmother. By-the-by, it was a bold stroke to encumber yourself with that brat; what’s become of him?’
‘Susan has taken him in asleep. You see, Maurice, I really could not help it, the poor little thing was so sickly, and had never thriven; but when they were a little while in bracing air, Lucy was longing to have him in England, and his father, who never believes in anything but what he likes, would not see it, and what with those Italian servants, and Algernon hunting Lucy about as he does, it would have been the death of him. Susan, good creature, had taken to him of her own accord the moment we came to Naples, and could not have borne to leave him, and you know the Awk is almost off her hands now, and Sophy, who first proposed it, or I am sure I should never have ventured, is delighted to do anything for either of them, and always has her little sister in her room. As to papa, he was very good, and the child is very little in his way, and has been quite well ever since we have been in this delicious air.’
‘How did you get Lucy to consent?’
‘Poor dear, it was a melancholy business; but she had so often been in alarm about him, and had suffered so much from having to leave him with people she did not trust, that she caught at the proposal before she fairly contemplated what the parting would be; and when she did, Algernon was too glad to be relieved from him not to keep her up to it, but it wont do to think of it, she has her baby, who is healthier, and if they remain abroad, I suspect we shall keep little Ralph altogether; he is a dear little fellow, and Sophy has so taken possession of Albinia, that I should be quite lost if I did not set up a private child.