It was sometimes said that no one of the young Lesters would be so fine a man as his father; and certainly Mr Lester was a splendid specimen of an English gentleman, though the big Jack rivalled him in inches, and promised equal size and strength, while Cheriton, who was of a slighter build, inherited his blue eyes and brilliant colouring. But they were his own children—every one fair, and tall, and healthy; and their characteristic differences did not destroy their strong resemblance to each other and to their handsome father, who now stood in the midst of them with a foreign letter in his hand, at which the children glanced curiously.
He was not much above fifty; his hair and beard, which had once deserved to be called golden, had rather faded than grizzled, his skin was still fresh and healthy, and his eyes bright in colour and full of expression; the level brows met over them. His children, as has been said, were curiously like him—Annette, or Nettie, as she was commonly called, perhaps the most so. Although she was big and unformed, she had the promise of great beauty in her straight sulky brows and large sky-blue eyes, resplendent colouring which defied sunburn, and abundant yellow hair. Her nose was straight and fine, like her father’s, but her full red lips were a trifle sullen; the contour of her face was heavy, and though she looked well born and well bred, she lacked the refinement of intelligent expression. But if her great blue eyes looked stupid and rather cross, they were as honest as the day; and at sixteen there was still time for thoughts and feelings to come and print themselves on this beautiful piece of flesh and blood.
She was very untidily though handsomely dressed, and had the awkwardness of a girl too big for her age; but as she stood leaning back against the oak table, there was such vigour and life in her strong young limbs as to give them a kind of grace. She had a low voice of refined quality, but she spoke with a strong north-country accent, as did her father. In the brothers it was much modified by their southern schooling. The twin brother, Robert, retained, however, a good deal of it. He was a heavier, less handsome likeness of her, and might have been described as a fine lad or a great lout, according to the prepossessions of the speaker. The next brother, John, or, as he was usually called, Jack, had, at nineteen, hardly yet outgrown the same ungainliness of manner; but his height, and the strength trained by many an athletic struggle, could not fail to be striking; and though he had something of the same sullen straightness of brow, the eyes beneath were thoughtful and keen. There was no lack of mental power in Jack’s grave young face, and he was a formidable opponent to his schoolfellows in contests of brain as well as of muscle.
Cheriton, except that his brows arched a little, so that he could not attain to the perfection of the family frown, and that he was an inch or two shorter and much slighter, was so like Jack that when he was grave and silent his brighter colouring and the moustaches to which he had attained were, at first sight, the chief points of difference between them. But then Jack’s face to-day would be his face to-morrow, while Cheriton’s expression varied with almost every word he spoke, so that he was sometimes said to be the image of his father, sometimes to be the one Lester who was like nobody but himself; while, now and then old friends wondered how this handsome young man came to have such a look of the mother, who had been no beauty, but only a high-minded and cultivated woman. He was his father’s favourite, and somehow his brothers were not jealous of the preference. “Cherry,” as they called him, was the family oracle, though he risked his place now and then when his utterances were not in accordance with the prevailing sentiment.
Mr Lester’s expression was now dark enough to indicate annoyance of no common kind; but it did not take much to make him look cross, and if his sons and daughter had not known that there was an unusual speck on the family horizon, they would have surmised that the keepers were in disgrace, the newspaper late in arriving, or that they themselves had unwittingly transgressed.
As it was they were all silent, though Cheriton looked up with a question in his eyes, and the twins glanced at each other.
“I have had a letter from—your brother; he has started on his journey, and will be here in a day or two.”
No one spoke for a moment, and then Cheriton said,—
“Well, father, I shall be very glad to see him. It’s a good time for him to come, and I hope we shall be able to make it pleasant for him.”
“Pleasant for him,” growled Bob.