When Dick wished that one of them were going to Switzerland, Nan sighed furtively. Dick was going away for three months, for the remainder of the long vacation. After next week they would not see him until Christmas,—nearly six months. A sense of dreariness, as new as it was strange, swept momentarily over Nan as she pondered this. The summer months would be grievously clouded. Dick had been the moving spirit of all the fun; the tennis-parties, the pleasant dawdling afternoons, would lose their zest when he was away.
She remembered how persistently he had haunted their footsteps. When they paid visits to the Manor House, or Gardenhurst, or Fitzroy Lodge, Dick was sure to put in an appearance. People had nicknamed him the “Challoners’ Squire;” but now Nan must go squireless for the rest of the summer, unless she took compassion on Stanley Parker, or that dreadful chatterbox his cousin.
The male population was somewhat sparse at Oldfield. There were a few Eton boys, and one or two in that delightful transition age when youth is most bashful and uninteresting,—a sort of unfledged manhood, when the smooth boyish cheek contradicts the deepened bass of the voice,—an age that has not ceased to blush, and which is full of aggravating idosyncrasies and unexpected angles.
To be sure, Lord Fitzroy was a splendid specimen of a young guardsman, but he had lately taken to himself a wife; and Sir Alfred Mostyn, who was also somewhat attractive and a very pleasant fellow, and unattached at present, had a tiresome habit of rushing off to Norway, or St. Petersburg, or Niagara, or the Rocky Mountains, for what he termed sport, or a lark.
“It seems we are very stupid this evening,” observed Phillis for Dick had waxed almost as silent as Nan. “I think the mother must nearly have finished her nap, so I propose we go back and have some tea;” and, as Nan languidly acquiesced they turned their faces towards the village again, Dulce still holding firmly to Nan’s arm. By and by Dick struck out in a fresh direction. 19
“I say, don’t you wish we could have last week over again?”
“Yes! oh, yes! was it not too delicious?” from the three girls; and Nan added, “I never enjoyed anything so much in my life,” in a tone so fervent that Dick was delighted.
“What a brick your mother was, to be sure, to spare you all!”
“Yes; and she was so dull, poor dear, all the time we were away. Dorothy gave us quite a pitiful account when we got home.”
“It was a treat one ought to remember all one’s life,” observed Phillis, quite solemnly; and then ensued a most animated discussion.