“Doesn’t Dick like hunting?” she said. “No, Dick takes after the governor. It’s cards that’ll send him to the devil, and the first Seyton he’ll be that’s not worth having, says Uncle James.”
Harry talked in a low, solemn voice, with the same odd twinkle in his eyes, and it was very difficult to say whether it was wicked mischief, or a sort of shameless naïveté, that made him so communicative.
Virginia still strongly suspected him of a desire to astonish her; but his last speech gave her a strange new pang, and she turned away to safer subjects.
“I suppose the Lester boys are friends of yours?”
“Well, that’s as may be. We’re such a bad lot, you see, that Bob’s never allowed to come here. There was a row once, and old Lester, a humbugging chap, just interfered. Jack’s such a confounded prig he wouldn’t touch us with a pair of tongs.”
“And Cheriton, of course, is too old for you.”
“Cherry! oh, he isn’t a bad fellow. I go over to Oakby sometimes when he’s there. But it’s a slow place, and old Lester keeps them very tight. And then he’s always humbugging after his schools and things. Writing to my father about the state of the village. As if it was his affair!” said Harry, in a tone of virtuous indignation.
“Doesn’t papa approve of education?” said Virginia.
“Bless you, he don’t trouble his head about it. Why should he? Teach a lot of poaching vagabonds to read and write!”
“But Uncle James—”