Dorothy left her companion at the gate while she went in to leave her book, remarking that she would be ashamed to introduce a boy with so black an eye. Presently she came back again, saying that Miss Ceswick was out.
“Who is Miss Ceswick?” asked Ernest, who at this period of his existence had a burning thirst for information of every sort.
“She is a very beautiful old lady,” was Dorothy’s answer. “Her family lived for many years at a place called Ceswick’s Ness; but her brother lost all his money gambling, and the place was sold, and Mr. de Talor, that horrid fat man whom you saw drive away this morning, bought it.”
“Does she live alone?”
“Yes; but she has some nieces, the daughters of her brother who is dead, and whose mother is very ill; and if she dies one of them is coming to live with her. She is just my age, so I hope she will come.”
After this there was silence for a while.
“Ernest,” said the little woman presently, “you look kind, so I will ask you. I want you to help me about Jeremy.”
Ernest, feeling much puffed up at the compliment implied, expressed his willingness to do anything he could.
“You see, Ernest,” she went on, fixing her sweet blue eyes on his face, “Jeremy is a great trouble to me. He will go his own way. And he does not like Reginald, and Reginald does not like him. If Reginald comes in at one door, Jeremy goes out at the other. And besides he always flies in Reginald’s face. And, you see, it is not right of Jeremy, because after all Reginald is very kind to us, and there is no reason he should be, except that I believe he was fond of our mother; and if it was not for Reginald, whom I love very much, though he is curious sometimes, I don’t know what would become of grandfather or us. And so, you see, I think that Jeremy ought to behave better to him, and I want to ask you to bear with his rough ways, and try and be friends with him and get him to behave better. It is not much for him to do in return for all your uncle’s kindness. You see, I can do a little something, because I look after the housekeeping; but he does nothing. And first I want you to get him to make no more trouble about going to Mr. Halford’s.”
“All right, I’ll try; but, I say, how do you learn? you seem to know an awful lot.”