"No, indeed, no such luck. Miss Warburton was very kind, very sympathetic, and anxious to help me; but she advised me not to set my heart on it for fear I should be disappointed. 'Miss Harford may think you too young,—yes, I know,' as I was about to protest indignantly at this,—'you are really nineteen, but no one would think you were over seventeen.' Isn't it humiliating, Mollie, that strangers will always think I am a child? If only my hair would grow and not curl over my head in this absurd way. People always take you for the eldest." "And you are to see Miss Harford to-morrow?"
"Yes, dear; and you must get Noel to throw another old shoe after me for luck." Then her lip trembled and her eyes grew misty.
"Dear, do not make it harder for me than you can help. Don't you know how I hate to leave my old Sweetheart? I would rather stay at home and live on bread and water than fare sumptuously in other folks' houses; I feel as though I should die with home-sickness and ennui. Oh, it is no crying matter, I assure you; it is the rack and the thumb-screw and the burning faggots all in one, and if you want a new martyr for the calendar, and have any spare halos on hand, I am your woman." And then, of course, Mollie did as she was expected to do, left off crying and began to laugh in the manner that often made her father call her "his wild Irish girl." And, indeed, there was something very Irish in Mollie's mercurial and impressionable temperament.
The next minute their attention was attracted by strange noises from below.
Something heavy was being dragged along the passage, accompanied by extraordinary sibilant sounds, resembling the swishing and hissing of an ostler rubbing down a horse. Both the girls seemed to recognise the sounds, for Waveney frowned and bit her lip, and Mollie said, in a troubled tone,—
"Oh, it is poor old 'Canute' come back;" and then they ran into the passage and looked over the balusters. Noel and a little fair man in a shabby velveteen coat were hauling a large picture between them, with much apparent difficulty. One end had got jammed in the narrow staircase, and Noel's encouraging "swishes" and "Whoa, there—steady, old man! Keep your pecker up, and don't kick over the traces," might have been addressed to a skittish mare. Then he looked up and winked at his sisters, and almost fell backwards in his attempt to feign excessive joy.
"Hurrah! three cheers! Here we are again—large as life, and as heavy as the fat woman in Mrs. Jarley's wax-works. But what's the odds as long as you are happy, as the lobster said as he walked into the pot."
"Hold your tongue, Noel," returned his father, good-naturedly. "It is your fault the confounded thing has got wedged. Keep it straight, and we shall manage it well enough;" and then he looked up at the two faces above him.
"There you are, my darlings," he said, nodding to them.
"You see I am bringing our old friend back; we will have him up directly if only this young jackanapes will leave off his monkey tricks." And then in a singularly sweet tenor voice he chanted,—