"Yes," Ruth agreed, nodding her fair head. "The pattern of your carpet is so pretty, too! I like those big bunches of roses! I should dearly love to have a little room like this for my very own!"
"I wonder how you'll get on with your cousin," Mrs. Groves remarked. "He's not so old as you, Master Lionel, and not so tall by half a head! Sir Richard seems to have taken to him wonderfully, I'm told, and—"
She paused abruptly at the sound of approaching wheels. The children darted excitedly out of the lodge, and flung open the heavy iron gates, whilst Mrs. Groves followed at a more leisurely pace, in time to see the doctor's gig draw up and Dick clamber down.
So it was that it fell to Dr. Warren's lot to introduce the children to each other. He was pleased that the Comptons had come to meet their cousin; and drove off quite satisfied that Dick would soon make friends of them.
After a few words with Mrs. Groves, the young folks made their way towards the house. For a short distance they were rather silent. Dick could not think of a subject to talk about; so that it was quite a relief when Lionel began to ask him questions, all of which he answered willingly and with no reserve. The elder boy soon extracted a great deal of information from the younger; amongst other things he learnt how dearly Dick loved his parents, and what a grief it had been to him to be sent away from them.
"Why didn't your mother come with you?" Ruth asked curiously, mindful of the conversation she had heard at the breakfast-table that morning.
"Because she couldn't leave father," Dick replied promptly; "and—and she said it was my duty to come to England alone; so, of course, I did not make more fuss than I could help. I didn't want father to think me a coward. Father's a brave soldier, you know; and mother says I must always remember I'm a soldier's son, and do my duty."
"We don't remember our father," Ruth said regretfully; "he died when Lionel and I were very young."
"Uncle Theophilus told me that," Dick returned, with sympathy in his voice.
"Uncle Theophilus!" Lionel exclaimed with a laugh. "Do you mean Dr. Warren? Uncle Theophilus! What a name!"