"How calm and quiet old home looks, William," said Charles; "I like to get back here after Oxford."
"No wine parties here. No steeplechases. No bloomer balls," said William.
"No! and no chapels and lectures, and being sent for by the Dean," said Charles.
"And none of they dratted bones, neither," said William, with emphasis.
"Ahem! why no! Suppose we ride on."
So they rode down the road through the woodland to the lodge, and so through the park—sloping steeply up on their left, with many a clump of oak and holly, and many a broad patch of crimson fern. The deer stood about in graceful groups, while the bucks belled and rattled noisily, making the thorn-thickets echo with the clatter of their horns. The rabbits scudded rapidly across the road, and the blackbird fled screaming from the mountain-ash tree, now all a-fire with golden fruit. So they passed on until a sudden sweep brought them upon the terrace between the old grey house and the murmuring sea.
Charles jumped off, and William led the horses round to the stable. A young lady in a straw hat and brown gloves, with a pair of scissors and a basket, standing half-way up the steps, came down to meet him, dropping the basket, and holding out the brown gloves before her. This young lady he took in his arms, and kissed; and she, so far from resenting the liberty, after she was set on her feet again, held him by both hands, and put a sweet dark face towards his, as if she wouldn't care if he kissed her again. Which he immediately did.
It was not a very pretty face, but oh! such a calm, quiet, pleasant one. There was scarcely a good feature in it, and yet the whole was so gentle and pleasing, and withal so shrewd and espiègle, that to look at it once was to think about it till you looked again; and to look again was to look as often as you had a chance, and to like the face the more each time you looked. I said there was not a good feature in the face. Well, I misled you; there was a pair of calm, honest, black eyes—a very good feature indeed, and which, once seen, you were not likely to forget. And, also, when I tell you that this face and eyes belonged to the neatest, trimmest little figure imaginable, I hope I have done my work sufficiently well to make you envy that lucky rogue Charles, who, as we know, cares for no woman in the world but Adelaide, and who, between you and me, seems to be much too partial to this sort of thing.
"A thousand welcomes home, Charley," said the pleasant little voice which belonged to this pleasant little personage. "Oh! I am so glad you're come."
"You'll soon wish me away again. I'll plague you."