"In a light way, I should say I had spoken a good deal; but seriously, no. I have never ventured to be serious."
"But you will be. After all this, you will ask her?"
"Aunt Mary," replied Charles, with gentle reproach, "a certain delicacy should be observed in probing the exact state of a man's young affections. At five-and-thirty (I know I am five-and-thirty, because you have told people so for the last three years) there exists a certain reticence in the youthful heart which declines to lay bare its inmost feelings even for an aunt to—we won't say peck at, but speculate upon. I have told you all I know. I have done what I was bidden to do, up to a certain point. I am now here to recruit, and restore my wasted energies, and possibly to heal (observe, I say possibly) my wounded affections in the intimacy of my family circle. That reminds me that that little ungrateful imp Molly has not yet made the slightest demonstration of joy at my arrival. Where is she?" and without waiting for an answer, which he was well aware would not be forthcoming, Charles rose and strolled towards the house with his hands behind his back.
"Molly!" he called, "Molly!" standing bareheaded in the sunshine, under a certain latticed window, the iron bars of which suggested a nursery within.
There was a sudden answering cackle of delight, and a little brown head was thrust out amid the ivy.
"Come down this very moment, you little hard-hearted person, and embrace your old uncle."
"I'm comin', Uncle Charles, I'm comin';" and the brown head disappeared, and a few seconds later a white frock and two slim black legs rushed round the corner, and Molly precipitated herself against the waistcoat of "Uncle Charles."
"What do you mean by not coming down and paying your respects sooner?" he said, when the first enthusiasm of his reception was over, looking down at Molly with a great kindness in the keen light eyes which had looked so apathetic and sarcastic a moment before.
As he spoke, Ralph Danvers, a square, ruddy man in gray knickerbockers, came triumphantly round from the shrubbery, holding by its tail a minute corpse with out-stretched arms and legs.
"Got him!" he said, smiling, and wiping his brow with honest pride. "See, Charles? See, Molly? Got him!"