"I am sure you never will," returned Eva in a tone that seemed to say such a thing could not be possible. "Had we not better retrace our steps to the house now?" she asked the next moment.
"Probably," said Max. "I presume father would say I ought not to deprive you of your beauty sleep. But these private walks and chats are so delightful to me that I am apt to be selfish about prolonging them."
"And your experience on shipboard has accustomed you to late hours, I suppose?"
"Yes; to rather irregular times of sleeping and waking. A matter of small importance, however, when one gets used to it."
"But there would be the rub with me," she laughed, "in the getting used to it."
CHAPTER XII.
"Cousin Ronald, can't you make some fun for us?" asked Ned at the breakfast table the next morning. "We haven't had any of your kind since we came here."
"Well, and what of that, youngster? must you live on fun all the time?" asked a rough voice directly behind the little boy.
"Oh! who are you? and how did you come in here?" he asked, turning half round in his chair, in the effort to see the speaker. "Oh, pshaw! you're nobody. Was it you, Cousin Ronald? or was it brother Max?"
"Polite little boys do not call gentlemen nobodies," remarked another voice that seemed to come from a distant corner of the room.