"Thanks, I'll be there," answered Rorie, and he escorted the ladies to their carriage; but not another word did Mabel speak till the brougham had driven away from Briarwood.
"What a horrid young man Roderick has grown, mamma!" she remarked decisively, when they were outside the park-gates.
"My love, I never saw him look handsomer."
"I don't mean his looks. Good looks in a man are a superfluity. But his manners—I never saw anything so underbred. Those Tempest people are spoiling him."
"Roderick," said Lady Jane, just as Rorie was contemplating an escape to the billiard-room and his cigar, "I want a little serious talk with you."
Rorie shivered in his shoes. He knew too well what his mother's serious talk meant. He shrugged his shoulders with a movement that indicated a dormant resistance, and went quietly into the drawing-room.
CHAPTER IV.
Rorie comes of Age.
"Bless my soul!" cried the Squire; "it's a vixen, after all."