She did not often make jokes, and before John had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to congratulate her with a hearty laugh, she was off again upon her querulous and rambling narration of the family news.
"If everything had been left to me, I might have managed, but Hugh's interference, apparently authorized by you, upset all my poor little arrangements. I need hardly say that Mama was so delighted to have her favorite at home with her that she has done everything since his arrival to encourage his self-importance. It's Hughie this and Hughie that, until I get quite sick of the sound of his name. And he's very unkind to poor little Harold. Apart from being very coarse and sarcastic in front of him, he is sometimes quite brutal. Only this morning he shot him in the upper part of the leg with a pellet from the poor little man's own air-gun."
John did laugh this time, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" to a passing wagon.
"I dare say it sounds very funny to you. But it made Harold cry."
"Come, come, Hilda, it's just as well he should learn the potentialities of his own instrument. He'll sympathize with the birds now."
"Birds," she scoffed. "Fancy comparing Harold with a bird!"
"It is rather unfair," John agreed.
"However, you won't be so ready to take Hugh's part when you see what he's been doing at Ambles."
"Why, what has he been doing?"
"Oh, never mind. I'd rather you judged for yourself," said Hilda, darkly. "Of course, I don't know what Hugh has been up to in London that you've had to send him down to Hampshire. I always used to hear you vow that you would have nothing more to do with him. But I know that successful people are allowed to change their minds more often than the rest of us. I know success justifies everything. And it isn't as if Hugh was grateful for your kindness. I can assure you that he criticizes everything you do. Any stranger who heard him talking about your plays would think that they were a kind of disgrace to the family. As for Laurence, he encourages him, not because he likes him, but because Hugh fills him up with stories about the stage. Though I think that a clergyman who has got into such a muddle with his bishops would do better not to make himself so conspicuous. The whole neighborhood is talking about him."