“Zen you are my cousin, for I am Emile Touron. You know me now?”
Phil did not know him from Adam, but he was saved any embarrassment on this point by the visitor turning to the carriage to help the boy pull out a small trunk, which was stowed away in the front of the vehicle.
The driver was paid, and drove away, and Phil then took hold of one handle of the trunk to assist his visitor in carrying it up the steps.
“One moment,” said his new-found cousin. “Let me gaze upon zis sharming house—zese lovely plains!” And he looked over the lawn and the pasture-field with a glistening eye, and then stepped backward to gaze upon the house. “Ah, ze bells! ze bells!” he cried. “Where are ze bells,—zose lovely bells which did dingle-dangle all ze time, ‘Come to dinner! Dinner ready! Hurry up!’ I was a boy when I heard zose lovely bells, and I did zink zey dingled in Shinese. But it was all ze same to me. Where are zey now? Haf zey blown away?”
“I never saw them at all,” said Phil. “My uncle took them down before I came here. He did not like them.”
The face of Monsieur Emile assumed a shocked expression.
“Not like zose bells,” he exclaimed,—“zose angel bells! I say no more!”
And taking hold of one handle of the trunk, he and Phil carried it up the steps.
Chap, who had been gazing in silent wonderment at the visitor, was now introduced to him. Emile Touron shook hands with the tall boy, but apparently took little interest in him, and suggested to Phil, as they passed into the hall, that as they now had hold of the trunk they might as well carry it up into the room he was to occupy.
Phil’s mind was not prepared for such prompt action, but he was a quick thinker, and of a polite and hospitable nature.