“They have all votes for the county,” said Mar, whose ear had been drawn in the same magical way.
“That’s a very good answer, Mar,” said John. “Life’s whatever you have to do with in the condition you are in. And I can tell you that to make such a speech when you’re suddenly called upon is one of the things—— I can tell you this. It makes my heart sink down into my boots. I’d rather meet a mad dog any day——”
“It’s not so hard, Uncle John,” said Mar, unable altogether to suppress the instinctive desire of youth to instruct its elders, “when you have no time to think at all, but must just carry on.”
John shook his head. “When you have to tell them you can’t take off ten per cent. off their rent—it’s not so easy,” he said. “They don’t sing ‘He’s a jolly good fellow,’ then.”
“It wasn’t Mar that was the jolly good fellow, it was Duke,” said Tiny.
“It was both of them,” cried Jack from across the table.
“I started it myself,” cried Reggie; “I know who I meant.”
“It was Duke,” said Miss Hill, to the great astonishment of the young ones. “It is not a thing I would ever sing—but I started it too. And Duke, if I ever was unkind to you—”
“You—unkind!” cried the young man with his laughing voice, in which the tears he was ashamed of were half audible. “But look here. I thought of what you said, Aunt Agnes. Now, father, listen, that boy’s not to be Mar any longer. He’s to be Frogmore.”
“Oh, Froggy—that is what I shall call him,” said the little girl.