“I’m sure—” she began happily, but her sister interrupted.
“Well, I’m not. You don’t know what a boy that age is capable of. And it’s a handsome watch. Geordie, I wish—There! Now you’ve broken this new one! Oh, my dear—”
For, as he arose, his foot had caught in the chair; he stumbled, and dropped the watch with a thud. It was Louie who recovered it; Louie who hastily gathered together the small oblong papers that fluttered out of his breast pocket. One had fallen at Mrs. Russell’s feet; she stooped.
“What—” she began; but Louie fairly snatched it out of her fingers.
“Here, Geordie!” she said, gayly.
Mrs. Russell did not know what these tickets were, but Louie did. Louie knew well.
III
Indeed, all the three inmates of the house were heavy at heart that night, each with some especial knowledge not shared by the others. The night grew sultry, too, and when the morning came, it was the first day of real summer, hot and still. It was a day to make any one jaded who had not slept well.
Geordie was down first, and walking up and down the veranda; smoking, too, his aunt noticed.
“You shouldn’t, before breakfast!” she admonished him, cheerfully. “And you can’t smell the flowers, either, if you do.”