"That was only supposing, Maidie!"
"Supposing an' supposing an' supposin'. 'Free times 'free is 'free," quoted Maidie slyly, "Just you wait an' see."
"Yes! wait and see," laughed Sir Geoffrey; "Goodbye, little one! Next time, I suppose, daddy will have put my nose out of joint, and you won't have anything to say to me--eh?"
She grew crimson to her ear-tips. "Never! never! never!" she cried, stamping her foot wilfully; "we's goin' to live together for everan'everan'--aye!"
The bystanders laughed at her sudden passion, and Sir Geoffrey's thin, ruddy face actually flushed a still deeper red.
"All right, little lady," he said half-sheepishly. "Never you fear! I'll keep my promise for ever an' never an'-naye!"
[CHAPTER VI]
The London footman was rolling out the dressing-gong as if he had been apprenticed to a bronze, when Ned Blackborough returned from his sick friend at the Seaview Hotel; but he took no heed to its warning, and turning down a side passage sought a room in the older part of the house where, as a rule, his uncle was to be found.
And sure enough, there he was, seated at his so-called writing-table, and turning round a trifle startled, pen in hand, at the sound of the opening door. But Ned's quick eye detected neither paper nor ink. The pen, then, was a mere shelter against the unlooked-for visitor.
It was a quaint room, full from floor to ceiling of the man and his immediate forbears, that succession of Sir Richards and Sir Geoffreys who had inherited the ever-lessening estate of Pentreath for the last two hundred years. Fishing-rods, guns, hunting-horns, and dueling-pistols testified to their amusements, a tin box labelled "Pentreath Estate Records," to their occupation, and a complete set of the Annual Register and Gentleman's Magazine to their literary tastes. There was a weighing-machine also, and in a glass case the sword presented to the then Sir Richard by Prince Charlie; for the Pentreaths were always on the losing side in everything. Yet they had always held their heads high in the past.