'Well, we discussed the probable owner. I concluded, after narrowly examining the hat, that she was tall, dark, and handsome, rather than pretty. Rorrison, on the other hand, maintained that she was a pretty, baby-faced girl, with winning ways.'
'And did you discover if either of you was right?'
'Yes,' said Dick slowly. 'In the middle of the discussion a little boy in a velvet suit toddled into the room, and said to us, "Gim'me my hat."'
In the weeks that followed, Rob had many delicious experiences. He was present at several tea-parties in Abinger's chambers, the guests being strictly limited to three; and when he could not pretend to be ill any longer, he gave a tea-party himself in honour of his two nurses—his one and a half nurses, Dick called them. At this Mary poured out the tea, and Rob's eyes showed so plainly (though not to Dick) that he had never seen anything like it, that Nell became thoughtful, and made a number of remarks on the subject to her mother as soon as she returned home.
'It would never do,' Nell said, looking wise.
'Whatever would the colonel say!' exclaimed Mrs. Meredith. 'After all, though,' she added—for she had been to see Rob twice, and liked him because of something he had said to her about his mother—'he is just the same as Richard.'
'Oh no, no,' said Nell, 'Dick is an Oxford man, you must remember, and Mr. Angus, as the colonel would say, rose from obscurity.'
'Well, if he did,' persisted Mrs. Meredith, 'he does not seem to be going back to it, and universities seem to me to be places for making young men stupid.'
'It would never, never do,' said Nell, with doleful decision.
'What does Mary say about him?' asked her mother.