"Well, I wanted to come, anyway," said Larry, with a placating grin. "I say, that is an awful nice dog!"
"You never call foxhounds 'dogs'!" said Christian, still with hauteur; "Larry, you are an owl!"
But she enjoyed the consciousness of knowing more than he did; she even forgave him his superfluousness. She thought it was rather decent of him to have come, and she let him lead Amazon for a part of the way, only reserving to herself the entry into the presence of Cottingham, bringing her sheaf with her.
Are childhood and youth indeed Vanity? When Christian looks back upon her childhood at Mount Music, it seems to her that the World, and Life, and Time, could hardly have bettered it for her, however they might have put their heads together over the job.
All her memories are steeped in sunlight. It was all fun and fights, and strawberries and dogs, and donkey-riding, and hot evenings on the big river, with the hum of flies in her ears, and Larry, hailing her from the farther bank of the Ownashee, across the stepping-stones. And whenever she thought about the schoolroom, it was always warm and rather jolly, especially in the Christmas holidays. They used to have drawing competitions, of which Larry was, of course, the promoter, in the old schoolroom, during the long winter evenings. Larry always had a pencil in his hand, and was renowned as an artist of horses and hounds, and Finn's wolf-dog, Bran, besides wielding a biting pen as a caricaturist. Christian could only compete in architectural designs that demanded neatness and exactness, but Georgy, the elder twin, had some skill in marine subjects, and, since he was going to the "Britannia," arrogated to himself the position of being an authority on shipping; so much so, indeed, that general satisfaction was felt when he was, one evening, worsted by Christian. The subject selected for competition was "A Haunted Ship."
"Where shall I put the ghost?" Georgy debated, chewing the end of his pencil, with his head on one side.
"In the shrouds, of course!" said Christian.
"Funny dog!" sneered Georgy, who considered that his artistic efforts were no fit subject for jesting. "You'd better come and shove in one of your Midianites for me!"
Then Christian, with the disconcerting swiftness of action, mental and physical, that was peculiarly hers, snatched, in a flash, the mug of painted-water from Larry's elbow, and poured its contents over Georgy's fair bullet-head; with which, and with a triumphing cry (learnt from a County Cork kitchenmaid, and very fashionable in the schoolroom) of "A-haadie!" she fled, "lighter-footed than the fox," and equally subtle and daring.