Mr. Cardus whistled softly.
“Ah,” he said, “tell him I am coming. By the way, Grice, this young gentleman has come to live here; his room is ready, is it not?”
“Yes, sir; Miss Dorothy has been seeing to it.”
“Good; where is Miss Dorothy?”
“She has walked into Kesterwick, sir.”
“O, and Master Jeremy?”
“He is about, sir; I saw him pass with a ferret a while back.”
“Tell Sampson or the groom to find him and send him to Master Ernest here. That will do, thank you. Now, Ernest, I must go. I hope that you will be pretty happy here, my boy, when your trouble has worn off a bit. You will have Jeremy for a companion; he is a lout, and an unpleasant lout, it is true, but I suppose that he is better than nobody. And then there is Dorothy”—and his voice softened as he muttered her name—“but she is a girl.”
“Who are Dorothy and Jeremy?” broke in his nephew; “are they your children?”
Mr. Cardus started perceptibly, and his thick white eyebrows contracted over his dark eyes till they almost met.