He was nearly strangled the next moment by Betty's arms thrown round his neck, and though he said,
'Elizabeth! Dear, dear, don't throttle me,' he did not seem angry.
Godfrey was just the sort of boy to get on well at school, and he was soon popular both with boys and masters. In after years there was a packet, put away among Angelica's more cherished possessions, and ticketed, 'Letters written from school by my nephew Godfrey,' and I think even the famous letter from the captain was not more read and re-read. There was one in particular which, I believe, had some tears dropped over it, though it was never shown to Martha and Penny as some of the others were.
'My dear Aunt Angel,' it ran, 'I have had a fight. The boy I fought was bigger than me. He gave me a black eye, but I gave him two. He said something about you and aunt Betty, but he never will again. Jones, who is the head of the school, says I am a good plucked one. He put some raw meat on my eye for me. I thought you might find it useful to know about it; it is the very best thing when anyone's knocked you about, only be sure you put it on at once. I send a kiss to Aunt Betty and one to Penny, and my love to Martha and Pete and Nancy and Kiah and Cousin Crayshaw.
'Your affectionate nephew,
'GODFREY WYNDHAM.'
'It's like the champions in the days of chivalry,' said Betty, with shining eyes, 'only instead of a beautiful ladye-love, the darling's been fighting and getting wounded just for his two maiden aunts. Angel, I believe that Jones is a dear boy. I should like to send a little cake for him when we send Godfrey one. Angel, do you—do you think it's our duty to scold Godfrey for fighting?'
'I'm not sure,' said Angel slowly; and then she added, for once as decidedly as her sister, 'but I'm sure I'm not going to.'
I expect a diary of the lives of Angelica and Betty for the next year or two would have run something in this way:
'Godfrey came home. Heard from Godfrey. Godfrey writes that the cricket season has begun. Godfrey brought home a prize. Godfrey went back to school' (this last with a very black mark against it). But such a diary, though it was deeply interesting to the two young aunts themselves, wouldn't make much of a story to those who didn't mark time by Godfrey's holidays, and so we must just take a leap over several of these uneventful years and come suddenly to the day which all the time had stood in Angel's mind as a sort of background to everything else that happened, the day which she had taught herself to think about, and which she prayed every day of her quiet life that she might be strong and brave to meet.
It was an autumn day, misty and still, like that on which Godfrey had first come to Oakfield, and Cousin Crayshaw came down in the middle of the week. It was late afternoon, and Angel was catching the last light from the window on her sewing; and when she raised her head at the sound of wheels, and saw her cousin get out of his chaise, she knew in one moment that the day she had been preparing for had come. She put her work down with very trembling hands, and went down the path to meet Mr. Crayshaw, knowing quite well what he had to say to her while he made little nervous remarks about the weather, until at last he took a paper out of his pocket and gave it her to read, watching her anxiously all the while. The writing seem to grow dim and uncertain before Angel's eyes, but she knew what it was—the order for Mr. Godfrey Wyndham to join the frigate Mermaid, Captain Maitland, ordered to the Channel, there to do the service of a midshipman. Angel's voice sounded to herself rather strange and far-away as she asked: