"The laziest animal in the world!" Miss Warren declared, shaking her head at her brother. "You know it's true, Theophilus, and it's all your fault! You indulge him, and let him go his own pace. He's getting so fat that soon he'll be a laughing-stock for the whole country-side!"
The doctor smiled good-temperedly, and made no reply, doubtless because he knew his sister was right. After tea he went out to see a patient, and Dick was left to the tender mercies of Aunt Mary Ann. Then his luggage arrived and was duly unpacked. His mother had sent several presents to her aunt and uncle, and Miss Warren was simply delighted.
"How kind of dear Margaret!" she said. "These sofa cushions are lovely—worked in silver and gold thread by the natives, I suppose. Come into the drawing-room, Dick, and let us see how the cushions will look on the sofa."
The drawing-room was not nearly such a cheerful apartment as the sitting-room, although it looked out into the pretty, old-fashioned garden. The furniture was heavy, and all the chairs were draped with brown Holland coverings; a piano occupied one corner of the room, but it was seldom touched, now-a-days, except, as Dick afterwards found out, on Sundays, when his aunt was sometimes tempted to play a chant or a hymn-tune.
Miss Warren arranged the cushions on the sofa, and seemed satisfied with the effect; then, seeing how tired Dick was looking, she suggested that he should go to bed; so he accordingly went upstairs to his own room. She came to visit him after he was in bed, and asked him if he had said his prayers; being satisfied on that point, she fussed around the apartment, seeing everything was in order, and then kissed him affectionately, bidding him soon sleep like a good boy. Dick heard her go downstairs ere he buried his head beneath the clothes and sobbed as though his heart would break. He was so dreadfully lonely, poor little boy; but he would not for anything have had Aunt Mary know that he was crying. She was as kind as his mother had said she would be; but still, she was a stranger to him. On board ship he had had Colonel and Mrs. Blair, whom he had known all his short life, to console him, and he had felt saying good-bye to them a great deal. He had not liked to tell Aunt Mary Ann how sore his heart was, nor how miserable he felt.
He went over again the parting with his parents on that memorable day weeks before, when they had been obliged to leave him on the homeward-bound vessel. How he had clung to them weeping; how pale his father had looked, and how his mother had scarcely been able to tear herself away from his embrace. He shut his eyes, and fancied he heard their voices; his father's saying, "Good-bye, Dick; be a brave boy! God bless you, my little son!" and his mother's, "Don't forget us, Dick!" As though it was possible that he could ever forget them! He was too young to know that that involuntary cry had come from her aching heart, prompted by the fear which haunted her that Sir Richard Gidley might try to win her son's affection from her—a fear she had never breathed to her husband, or to any one but God.
Dick cried till he felt quite exhausted, and then lay perfectly still, listening to the sounds which reached his room—his aunt's voice downstairs, the footsteps of passers-by in the street outside. By-and-by he heard the front door open and shut; and presently, slow, deliberate steps mounted the stairs; the door opened quietly, and the doctor entered, bearing a lighted candle in his hand, which he placed on the dressing-table.
"I have come to say good-night to you, Dick," he said in his deep pleasant voice, as he seated himself in a chair by the bedside. Then he took one of the child's hot hands in his, and breathed— "A-ah!"
Dick was ashamed to be caught crying; but Uncle Theophilus tactfully refrained from remarking upon his very evident distress; instead, he spoke of the drive he meant to take on the morrow, and asked Dick if he would bear him company.
"Oh, yes, please!" Dick answered. "How kind of you to think of taking me!"