“You and I must not be on two sides, Leo, my dear,” said the brother, smiling, but with a troubled look on his face, which seemed the reflection of that in the eyes of the elder sister. “I’m like a grandfather to you, my darling, and what I say and advise is for the best.”
“Do you wish to send me back to my room, Hartley?” said the girl, half rising.
“Name of a little fiddler in France, no!” cried Hartley Salis. “There—mum! I’ve done, dear. Breakfast! I’m as hungry as two curates this morning. What is it, Dally?”
“Ammonegs, sir,” said the little maid, who entered with a covered dish.
“Didn’t know Ammon ever laid ’em,” muttered the curate, with a dry look at his sisters. “Now then: letters. Let me see.”
He proceeded to open his letters, and read and partook of his breakfast at the same time, making comments the while for the benefit of his sisters, when he thought the news would please.
“Humph! May!” he said aloud; and then skimmed the ill-written, crabbed lines in silence.
“Hang him!” he said to himself. “What mischief-making wretch inspired that?” and he re-read the letter. “‘Not becoming of the sister of a clergyman to be seen so often in the hunting-field—better be engaged over parish work—excites a good deal of remark—hope shall not have to make this painful allusion again’—Humph!”
The curate’s face was full of the lines of perplexity, and rapidly doubling up the letter, he swallowed half a cup of tea at a gulp, much hotter than was good for him, and quite sufficiently so to cause pain.
“Phew! More milk, Mary, dear.”