"An' no doubt it will, ninny," says nurse, shaking her beribboned head very solemnly, "I have no opinion of those soldiering ways myself. I fear me he will be growing wilder an' wilder every day."
"Oh! if that's all!" says Miss Lilian, with a relieved sigh. "I am only afraid he will be growing steadier and steadier; and Taffy would be ruined if he gave himself airs. I can't endure dignified young men."
"I don't think you need fret about that, my dear," says nurse, with conviction. "I never yet saw much signs of it about him."
Having used up all nurse's powers of conversation, Lilian goes on to Lady Chetwoode's boudoir, and finds out from her the room Taffy will be likely to occupy. Having inspected it, and brought up half the servants to change every article of furniture in the room into a different position, and given as much trouble as possible, and decided in her own mind the precise flowers she will place upon his dressing-table the morning of his arrival, she goes back to her auntie to tell her all she has done.
In fact, any one so busy as Miss Chesney during all this day can scarcely be imagined. Her activity is surprising, and draws from Cyril the remark that she ought to go as hospital nurse to the wounded Turks, as she seems eminently fitted for an energetic life.
After luncheon she disappears for a while, so that at last—though not for long—something like repose falls upon the house, which sinks into a state of quietude only to be equaled by that of Verne's "Van Tricasse."
Miss Beauchamp is in her room, studying art; Cyril is walking with a heart full of hope toward The Cottage; Lilian is absent; Guy is up-stairs with his mother, relating to her a new grievance anent poachers.
The lad now in trouble is an old offender, and Guy is puzzled what to do with him. As a rule all scamps have something interesting about them, and this Heskett is an unacknowledged favorite of Sir Guy's.
"Still I know I ought to dismiss him," he says, with a rather troubled air, and an angry, disappointed expression upon his face.
"He is young, poor lad," says Lady Chetwoode.