As Frank Churchill sprang out, he looked up to the window and waved his hand. In a minute he had run upstairs and was in his mother's arms.
"Why, my boy, how late you are!" said Mrs. Churchill, as she relaxed her embrace. "You must be famished for your dinner, my poor fellow!"
"Excursion-trains, mother, your favourite doctrine of health and change for your old protégé the working-man, you know, have contributed to your anxiety and my delay. We were stopped at Forest Hill for a train full of people, with drooping hats and feathers and banners and bands and general tomfoolery, who had been having a day at the Crystal Palace."
"Well, so long as you're here and all safe, that's all the old mother cares about, Frank. Dinner, Lucy, now, at once; Mr. Frank's half-starved. Let me look at you, my boy, and see whether the trip's done you any good. Eh, you're certainly tanned, and a little stouter, Frank, I think."
"Perhaps so, mother, though I've been taking more exercise than usual too. Any news? I saw a pile of letters on the study-table as I rushed past, but I didn't stop to look at them. Any body been?"
"Mr. Harding was here yesterday, to see if you had returned from among the 'swells,' as he called them. I think he's a little envious of your going into such society; eh, Frank?"
"Not a bit of it, mother; nothing would take old George Harding beyond his own set. But he's afraid of my getting my head turned."
"No fear of that in my boy," said Mrs. Churchill somewhat gravely; "there is the difference between you and your poor father, Frank. And now, how is Sir Marmaduke? and what sort of people were staying there? and was he kind and friendly to you? and how did you enjoy yourself?"
As Mrs. Churchill finished speaking, Lucy the old servant entered the room and announced dinner. She was a tall gaunt woman, with a hard unpleasant face, which did not soften much when Churchill, looking up, said, "Well, Lucy, back at home, once again, you see."
"Yes, I see, Master Frank," the woman replied coldly. "We've been waiting dinner until we must be faint, I should think."