"Go on, Master Impudence! Do they call you 'Cayenne,' too?"
"Yes, indeed! And 'Bricks,' and 'Mortar,' and 'Flag,'—short for 'Conflagration,'—and everything of that sort. I don't care; I don't mind any of these; but when they call me 'Hamlet,' I knock them down."
"Dear Jerry! Why do they call you 'Hamlet?'"
"Oh! just some idiot started it,—you can't tell how these things start. One comfort is,—I called him the 'Grave-digger,' and it will stick to him through college, for he looks it to the life. And the joke of it,—I don't know whether it's safe to tell you the joke of it, Hilda."
"Try and see!"
"Well, the real joke of it is that his father is an undertaker, and I never knew it.
"But I haven't finished about the courses!" he added, hastily, seeing Hilda look serious. "I am taking French, and Ferguson German. We have delightful conversations every evening, I speaking my language, and he his. You shall have a specimen when you see us togeth—Hullo! What's that?"
Mrs. Grahame uttered a slight cry, and rose hastily to her feet.
"I—I don't know," she said. "I thought—I surely did see a face looking in at the window. Hark!"
They listened, and heard a rustling in the great linden-tree outside. Then something gleamed white at the window,—a face, beyond all doubt.