“Are we to go, Adam?” said Charlie, eagerly. He had come to Murrayshaugh with me, and had waited on the terrace with Hew and Lucy while I bearded the lion within.
“Yes,” said I, with some heat—for there is nothing that one resents so warmly in one’s first youth as any prophecy of ingratitude on the part of those whom we delight to honour. “Yes, we’re to go. I would like to know why old people continually think young ones fools.”
I was nearly eighteen—I drew myself up.
“Perhaps because they are often, Adam,” suggested Lucy gently.
I could not be angry at Lucy Murray. I was too full of boyish chivalry, having reëntered the age of imagination, to be anything but gentle and deferential to a girl.
“How you do speak,” exclaimed my cousin, “you think us fools, do you, Lucy?—very well—you’ll see that by and by.”
“When you read the honourable Member for Edinburgh’s great speech,” said Hew, with his frank and pleasant laugh, “about—what will it be about, Charlie?”
“And I would like to know,” continued Charlie, angrily, “what we have done that we should be thought so very foolish. We have only been at home all our lives, no doubt—people get so much more culture in Yorkshire!”
Lucy turned away.
“Never heed him, Lucy,” said Hew, “he shows the cloven foot. It’s all about poor Dick Fendie. Why, man, Charlie, to be jealous of him!”