“Go along with you!” cried Sir John. “Don’t talk nonsense. We’re getting old boys now, Jem, and you’ll stop along with me to the end.”
“Yes, we’re getting old, Jack, very fast indeed,” said the major, as his brother laid a hand affectionately upon his shoulder just as he used in old school-boy days; “time gallops away now.”
“Ay, it does; and that’s why I can’t help feeling a bit anxious about seeing Glynne happily settled in life.”
“And it ought to make you the more particular about—”
“Hush!” cried the baronet, interrupting him sharply, “the girls! Oh, hang it! how can Glynne be so absurd.”
Volume One—Chapter Four.
Serpens.
Sir John and his brother had just reached an opening in Brackley Wood, a fine old pheasant preserve, when the former became aware of the fact that his child and the lady whom she had of late made her companion and friend, were seated in the shade cast by a venerable oak, Glynne painting in front of her easel, upon which were the skilful beginnings of an oil picture representing a rough looking gipsy seated upon a tree stump, in the act of carving the knob of a stick with his long Spanish knife, while Lucy Alleyne, the friend, was reading from a book resting upon her knees.