"I hope to the Lord he isn't coming," declared Ned. "'Twill spoil all—a regular death's head he'll be, and us shan't dare to have an extra drop of beer or a bit of fun after with the girls."
Beer and a bit of fun with the girls' represented the limit of Edward Baskerville's ambitions; and he gratified them with determination when opportunity offered. His father was blind to his faults and set him on a pedestal above the rest of the family; but his mother felt concern that her eldest son should be so slight a man. She lived in hope that he might waken to his responsibilities and justify existence. Ned was unusually well-educated, and would do great things some day in his father's opinion; but the years passed, he was now twenty-five, and the only great thing that he had done was twice to become engaged to marry and twice to change his mind. None denied him a rare gift of good looks; and his fine figure, his curly hair, his twinkling eyes and his mouth, when it smiled, proved attractive to many maidens.
Mrs. Baskerville left a spoon in the large beef-steak pudding and read her brother-in-law's letter, while a cloud of steam ascended to the kitchen ceiling.
"DEAR BROTHER VIVIAN,
"You ask me to come and eat my dinner with you on the twenty-eighth day of June next, because on that day you will be up home seventy years old. If you think 'tis a fine thing to find yourself past three score and ten—well, perhaps it is. You can't go on much longer, anyway, and journey's end is no hardship. At a first thought I should have reckoned such a birthday wasn't much to rejoice over; but you're right and I'm wrong. A man may pride himself on getting so well through with the bulk of his life and reaching nigh the finish with so few thorns in his feet and aches in his heart as what you have. I'll come.
"Yours faithfully,
"HUMPHREY BASKERVILLE."
A mournful sound like the wind in the trees went up from Uncle Humphrey's nephews and nieces.
"Be damned to him!" said Ned.
"Perhaps he won't come after all, when he hears Uncle Nat is coming," suggested May. She was always hopeful.
Mrs. Baskerville turned and put the letter on the mantel-shelf behind an eight-day clock. Then she sat down and began to help the pudding.