“A chatterbox, perhaps, but not an absurd one,” was the good-natured reply. “I feel particularly interested about the pony, I can assure you; have you had him long? I daresay he is a-great favourite.”
This speech, which was addressed to. Hugh, was too much for the poor little fellow’s fortitude, and, after a vain struggle to repress them, his scarcely dried tears sprang forth anew.
Percy threw his arm around him, and drew him affectionately to his side, as he said, in an explanatory whisper, “He is going to school for the first time, sir; and before he comes back, the pony we are so fond of must be sold.”
“And you?” inquired Ernest, interested by the boy’s manner and appearance.
“I am older, and therefore better able to bear such little trials,” was the reply. “Besides,” Percy continued, in a lower tone, “my mother depends upon me to take care of him, and keep up his spirits, for he has no father now to protect him.” Ernest glanced involuntarily at their deep mourning, and there was a pause; for the circumstance brought vividly before his recollection a similar period of sorrow, when death had been busy among his own loved ones, and his father and a younger brother, of whom Percy strongly reminded him, had been called from this world of care, and sin, and sorrow, to that better land, “where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.” The silence was at length broken by Hugh, whose grief was a very April kind of affair, even at the worst of times.
“I suppose you are not going to school, sir, too?” he said, addressing Ernest, while a merry sparkle in his eye belied the {implicit}’ the question indicated.
“Perhaps I may be,” returned Ernest, smiling at the applicability of the question to his own situation. “If I should tell you that I were going to do so, would you believe me?”
“I don’t think I should,” replied Hugh, regarding him attentively. “People don’t usually go to school when they’ve these things on their faces;” and, as he spoke, he, with a gesture half coaxing, half arch, gave a gentle twitch to Ernest’s curling whiskers.
Percy, afraid Hugh’s sudden rush into intimacy might annoy the stranger, attempted to restrain him, but Ernest, with a good-natured smile, prevented him.
“Do not check him,” he said; “our friendship will not end any sooner because it has begun rather rapidly.” He then, entered into conversation with the boys, choosing subjects in which he imagined they would feel interest, and enlarging upon them so cleverly and amusingly, that ere they reached the station, he had completely captivated the fresh, warm hearts of his young-companions.