"I shall, indeed. He's a bad boy!"
"Not at all!—he's a Deare!" at which they both laughed, for Mr. Bright's assistant, like the Assistant Magistrate, had a name of infinite possibilities. A comic fate had thrown him and Jack Darling together in the same Station, and they were provocative of fun in more senses than the coincidence of their names afforded.
The guest was carried off to see the son-and-heir in his crib and admire his indefinite features that were prophetic of beauty, and his limbs that were a miracle of elasticity.
By and by, they settled down to talk and Honor was told of the Padre's approaching visit. "Mrs. Fox thinks we should ask him to put up with us this time, or he might be offended," she explained. "Will your mother mind?"
"Mind? she'll be only too glad, for in private life the old man is a terrible bore! he tells the same joke over and over again, and Mother says she is determined not to laugh the next time. There ought to be some way of choking off stale jokes, don't you think, without offending the poor dear?"
"Tell him one of his own. I am sure it will make such an impression that he'll never forget it."
"He's so polite, that he'll laugh heartily as though he'd never heard it in his life!"
"What a hopeless person! However, I shall be glad to save your mother from nervous prostration," said Joyce.
"Mrs. Fox always gets news in advance of everyone else," said Honor. "I wonder how she does it?"
"She says she hears a lot—Ray says, servants carry news about the District as fast as telegrams."