CHAPTER III.
"LITTLE MAY."
n the evening of the third day after this interview, a fly from the railway drove up the long, winding avenue leading to the great front entrance of the Thetford mansion. A bronzed military gentleman, a nurse, and a little girl, occupied the fly, and the gentleman's keen, dark eyes wandered searchingly around. Swelling meadows, velvety lawns, sloping terraces, waving trees, bright flower-gardens, quaint old fish-ponds, sparkling fountains, a wooded park, with sprightly deer—that was what he saw, all bathed in the golden halo of the summer sunset. Massive and grand, the old house reared its gray head, half overgrown with ivy and climbing roses. Gaudy peacocks strutted on the terraces; a graceful gazelle flitted out for an instant amongst the trees to look at them, and then fled in affright; and the barking of half a dozen mastiffs greeted their approach noisily.
"A fine place," thought Capt. Everard. "My pretty Ada might have done worse. A grand old place for that puny child to inherit. The staunch old warrior-blood of the Thetfords is sadly adulterated in his pale veins, I fancy. Well, my little May, and how are you going to like all this?"
The child, a bright-faced little creature, with great, restless, sparkling eyes, and rose-bloom cheeks, was looking in delight at a distant terrace.
"See, papa! See all the pretty peacocks! Look, Ellen," to the nurse, "three, four, five! Oh, how pretty!"
"Then little May will like to live here, where she can see pretty peacocks every day?"
"And all the pretty flowers, and the water, and the little boy—where's the little boy, papa?"