John Travers was not handsome, but comfortable-looking; his figure, perhaps, was becoming a thought too comfortable; but then John Travers was fifty-five, and plenty had been his lot for nigh upon eightfold of the proverbial seven years that go to make plenty a really established fact. Then, too, he gave way, perhaps somewhat injudiciously, to a liking for white waistcoats and rather large and conspicuous watch-chains.
Of Elizabeth Travers, his wife, little need be told in description, for much is learned of her ways and days in twenty-four hours. That she, too, was comfortable need hardly be said; else John, who was a devoted husband, would not have been so. But she was not in the least too comfortable to be a fitting wife for John Travers, or the truly motherly mother of his children. For surely a broad breast is the natural haven for young heads, when wearied of the very fulness of the joys of childhood, or stricken with its tragic, if fleeting griefs.
John and Elizabeth Travers had two sons and two daughters. What could be more comfortable than that? Is not "two of each" in all good things the very acme of satisfaction and contentment? The children themselves were comfortable, considering their years; for if ever there is a period more devoted than another to strange misgivings, fervent hopes, and acute sensibilities, that period is youth; and none of these characteristics can be said to be "comfortable" ones.
Digby, their first-born, now twenty-three years of age, and a student at Oxford, was enjoying the long vacation under the comfortable parental roof-tree. Of Francis, the second son, aged nineteen, was to be made what is known as a gentleman farmer—an ever-increasing interest in the somewhat laborious pursuits of tilling, ploughing, sowing, and harvesting, not to mention a love of animals, making apparent at a very early age the bent of the boy's mind. That he had not Digby's intellect was obvious to those who knew both brothers; but that Francis was going to do very well in his own line was everybody's opinion. His enthusiasm for all bucolic pursuits, together with a keen—no, not a keen; there was nothing keen about Francis—together with a good, sound judgment of all things connected with them, was marked. If his eye lacked quick observation or keen appreciation, as it lighted on some matter of interest or beauty, it was steady, honest, trustworthy, and not without a certain shrewdness. And it were hard upon him to criticise the tendency of lip to part with lip; for there was nothing of weakness or indecision about the large, well-cut mouth, which could close firmly enough at such times when depth of thought or concentration of mind were required of him. Rather should the characteristic be looked upon as the natural consequence of open-air labour, of a nature that demands more oxygen than can in reason be expected to find its way to the lungs by the nasal channel alone; if the fact that to one who frequently studies the sky for signs of changes of weather with the long, earnest scrutiny bestowed by Francis Travers, was not in itself explanation enough for an ofttimes open mouth.
The daughters, Doris and Phyllis, aged sixteen and twelve years, were slim, fair-haired maidens. Doris, the elder, looked upon life with grave eyes, seeing only its serious side, and determinedly facing that aspect with resolute lips and somewhat pale cheeks, quaint and demure. Phyllis, on the other hand, while in no way boisterous—sharing, indeed, in some part her sister's quietude of mind and demeanour—was rosily cheerful and a thorough child. It was quaint Doris's aim to keep her thus; and odd it was to note the enforcement of the staid authority which the slender four years of seniority gave to the girl in the absence of their mother, or of their governess, Miss Manifold.
Miss Manifold—nicknamed "Sins and Wickedness" by Hugh and Teddie Le Mesurier—the daughter of a Lincolnshire squire, long since deceased, was a good woman, well liked by her two pupils, whose well-being she had sincerely at heart. At the present moment she was absent from The Beeches, being once more returned into the bosom of her family for the Midsummer holidays. This fact, meaning as it did freedom of will and action, combined with the pleasing circumstance that Hazel Le Mesurier's impending visit was about to be realised, brought much rejoicing to the girls; for even sober Doris was not impervious to the delights of a few weeks' unrestricted leisure, nor unmindful of the advantages of living for that short interval without the eye of supervision upon her every movement.
She and Phyllis were, for the fourth time this morning, taking a survey of the bedroom that had been allotted to their girl-guest—moving, changing, and rearranging articles of furniture or ornament to suit Hazel's queer taste and odd fancy. The bed they had dragged before one of the windows, for Hazel had once confided to these two friends that she liked nothing better than to sleep with her head pillowed on the sill; only that it was not often that bed and sill chanced to stand in the necessary relative position one to the other. Also the bed must needs be wide enough to permit the full stretch of her limbs, when she had twisted herself to this crosswise position. She assured Doris and Phyllis that to gaze up at the stars until you fell asleep was conducive to the dreaming of the most lovely dreams, whilst the soft fanning of the summer night-air proved most pleasant and refreshing.
"And what if it rains?" her breathless auditors had asked.
"That is nice, too, in its way," Hazel had made answer. "But once," she added ruefully, "when I was sleeping so, I was so sound asleep that it did not wake me until my hair was drenched, and I had to get up and rub it with a towel for nearly two hours."
"How your arms must have ached," Doris said, eyeing the heavy brown mane, half in admiration, half in pity.