“Hello, hello, hello,” he said to each of the three aunts, as he kissed them affectionately. “I know you didn’t expect me,” he continued, as, with the trio clinging to him and making much of him, he went into the house,—“I know you didn’t expect me so soon, but the fact is I was homesick and wished to see you all and so I came. I hope you are glad. And, I say, why in the name of all that is good didn’t you ever tell me I had a cousin,—and at Wellesley, too? And why did you never tell me more of Cousin Gerold, who, it seems, painted that picture of you all? It’s awfully queer. Hello, Tom, how d’ye?” he added, as a woolly head appeared in the doorway and a grinning negro answered:
“Jes’ tol’able, thanky, Mas’r Grant. How d’ye youself?”
Keziah was evidently very glad of this diversion, which turned the conversation away from Doris, who had remained outside, with a feeling that for the present the aunts must have Grant to themselves. How handsome and bright and magnetic he was, and how gay he made the dinner with his jokes and merry laugh! Once, however, it seemed to Doris that a shadow flitted across his face, and that was when Miss Keziah asked after Dorothea.
“Oh, she’s right well,” he answered, indifferently, and when his aunt continued:
“Didn’t she hate to have you leave so abruptly?” he replied, laughingly:
“She paid me the compliment of saying so, but I reckon Aleck Grady will console her for awhile.”
“Who is Aleck Grady?” Miss Morton asked, and Grant replied:
“Have I never written you about Aleck Grady? A good fellow enough, but an awful bore, and a second cousin of Thea’s, who joined us in Egypt and has been with us ever since.”
Beriah had heard of him, but Miss Morton could not recall him, and continued to ask questions about him as if she scented danger from him as well as from Doris. Was he in the Hepburn line and really Thea’s cousin, and did she like him?
At the mention of the Hepburn line Grant’s face clouded, and he answered rather stiffly: