She then proceeded to tell him in as few words as possible, what had taken place at Hollowmell on Saturday night, and how it came about that Mabel happened to be there at such a late hour.
"Why," exclaimed Archie, when he had listened with an interest, which surprised himself as entirely as it surprised Minnie; for though of an unusually curious disposition, he invariably found his interest flag after drinking in the first few details of anything. "Why, if you aren't a party of complete 'bricks—' Seymour called you a saint, but I say a 'brick,' and if you aren't content with that, I don't know what will content you." And he stared at her with an expression of intense approval that was irresistible.
"But what I want to know is this," he continued in a tone of confidential deliberation, when her amusement had subsided. "However did you manage to get Charlie into such a pie? He and Seymour go together in these affairs; I should have considered Ned a more suitable subject for a purpose of that kind."
"O, I hadn't time to think, I suppose, I was in too great a hurry to get away—and besides I wasn't sure whether Ned was in or not. I'm glad now it was Charlie, for I don't think he'll look on these things with the same eyes now, as he used to, after what he saw of their value and necessity when nothing else could avail."
"Ah, well, I don't know much about it myself, but I suppose we must attend to them some time, though there's no particular hurry at present for any of us that I can see."
"Oh, but there is!" cried Minnie anxiously, "don't you see that the end may come any day, and that though we are young, we haven't any guarantee that we will live even one day more—there are so many ways we may die, and just consider that one of them might overtake us within an hour."
"O, yes, of course, it might," was his light reply, "but that's very unlikely. It's a rather dull sort of subject this—I think I'll run round to Jack Durnard's for a map I lent him yesterday."
He walked out unconcernedly, and Minnie made no effort to stop him, knowing how useless further remonstrance on this point would be.
Next day Mabel was allowed to come to school, greatly to Minnie's delight, and was not worse on that account contrary to her aunt's confident expectation, indeed the life and activity with which she found herself surrounded there, and into which she was ere long sucked, seemed to raise and disperse the cloud of depression which had enveloped her, so that in a few days she was her old self again.
The examination in which Mona and Minnie were to take part, was now drawing near, and both were very hard at work in consequence. Minnie, who never did anything by halves, wrought with all her energy, and denied herself the pleasure of being at Hollowmell as often as usual, that she might keep herself in right working order.