“Gervase, dear, you’re quite grown up, don’t you know; quite a man now. You mustn’t be so mischievous, just like a boy. Poor Uncle Giles, you must not play tricks upon him; he likes a quiet game.”
“Don’t you be a fool, Meg. Why, that was what I was doing all the night, playing his quiet game. Poor old father, he got into a temper, but bless you ’twasn’t my fault. It’s that old ass, Dunning, that’s always getting in everybody’s way.”
“Of course he would like you best, Gervase,—but Dunning knows all his ways. Your game might be better fun——”
“I should think so,” said the poor Softy. “My game is the game, and Dunning spoils everything. It ain’t my fault, though every one of you gets into a wax with me,”—Gervase’s lip quivered a little as if he might have cried,—“and me giving up everything only to please them!” he said.
“I am sure they are pleased to see you always indoors and not spending your time in that dreadful place.”
“What dreadful place? That is all you know—I’d never have come home any more but for them that’s there. It was she that sent me to please the old folks. But I shan’t go on much longer if you all treat me like this. I’ve tried my best to make the time pass for them, Meg, to give them a laugh and that. And they huff me and cuff me as if I was a fool. Why do they always call me a fool,” cried the poor fellow with a passing cloud of trouble, “whatever I do?”
“Oh, Gervase!” cried Margaret, full of pity. “But why did she want you so particularly to please them just now?”
He stared at her for a moment, then laughed and nodded his head. “You’d just like to know!” he said, “but she didn’t mean me to be nice to you, Meg; for she’s always afraid I’ll be driven to marry you—though a man must not marry his grandmother, you know.”
Margaret repented in a moment of the flush of anger that flew over her. “You can make her mind easy on that point,” she said gravely; “but oh, Gervase, I am afraid it will make them very unhappy if you go on with this fancy; they would never let you bring her here.”
“Fancy!” he cried, “I’m going to marry her. You can’t call that a fancy; and if you think you can put me off it, or the whole world!—Get along Meg, I don’t want to talk to you any more.”