Hugh certainly did not look well. His rosy color was gone, and there were dark circles under his blue eyes; but he answered so brightly, and was so full of joy and delightful anticipation, that Colonel Ferrers smiled even as he sighed, and turned to his brother.
"Pretty sight, Raymond?" he said, for perhaps the twentieth time. "Pretty custom, eh? Give you my word, sir, I haven't enjoyed anything so much for years."
"If you go on at this rate, Tom," rejoined his brother, "you will be in short jackets again in a year or two. After all, what is there in the world so good as youth, my dear fellow? Let us hold it fast, say I, as long as we can!"
"Yes!" growled the Colonel. "But you wouldn't have said that before you came here, Raymond Ferrers; and I shouldn't have said it before Hildegarde Grahame came here,—"
"And her mother!" put in Raymond.
"And her mother, of course!" cried the Colonel, testily. "She never thought of coming here without her mother, did she? Don't be a quibbler, my good fellow! If there is one thing I find it difficult to have Christian patience with, it is a quibbler. I tell you, sir, that before those people came here my life was a stagnant fish-pond, sir; with no fish in it, either, and—and it shows what a young woman can do, sir, when she is willing just to be a young woman, and to minister cheerfulness and joy and—and affection to the people around her. Three years ago I had not a friend in the world,—or thought I had not, which amounts to the same thing,—except a round-shouldered fiddle-maker in another State, whom I never expected to see again. I was morose, sir! I was unfit for human companionship! And now—" the Colonel stopped to wipe his eye-glasses, and blew his nose portentously—"now I have a son in my own house,—two sons just now, for if you pretend that Jack is more your son than mine, I scoff at you, sir, and I deride you!—and a daughter close by, who will come to me if my little finger aches. And to that daughter, sir,—under Providence," and the Colonel bowed his head and dropped his voice,—"to Hildegarde Grahame, I owe all this, and more. So I say,—"
"Here they come!" cried Hugh, who had been watching from the window. "Here they all come, Guardian! My Beloved and her mother, and after them all the others. Oh! but Captain Roger is not with them!"
The four hosts hurried out into the hall to meet their guests, and many and warm were the greetings. Hildegarde in white, Bell in pink, and Gertrude in blue, looked like a posy of fresh flowers, and Kitty like the little rosebud she was. Mrs. Merryweather and Mrs. Grahame were already taking off their wraps, and Miles Merryweather and Phil brought up the rear, with Willy.
"Where's the Professor?" cried the hospitable Colonel, rubbing his hands. "Where is Professor Roger? I was definitely promised that he would be here."
Where was Roger? Hildegarde's heart echoed the question; and though she greeted the Colonel with her own bright smile, it was rather an effort to be as gay as usual; for the disappointment had been severe. Roger had telegraphed that he would be with them that afternoon without fail; and now all the trains had come and gone, and no Roger had come. All the Merryweathers were crying out, and saying that some tiresome man of science must have captured him, and carried him off. Hildegarde was only a little more silent than usual; she slipped quietly into the drawing-room, and took her seat by Mr. Raymond Ferrers, whose smile always seemed like a kind of sublimated music,—music that soothed while it cheered. But when she saw her little Hugh, with his pale face, and the suffering look in his dear blue eyes, she reproached herself for a selfish, unloving girl, and went and sat with her arm round the child, looking affectionately and anxiously at him, and listening to his story of the joy of the blessed day.