The three sisters came up the lawn together, but Nan carried her racquet a little languidly; she looked a trifle grave.
Mrs. Challoner laid down her knitting and looked at them, and then she regarded her watch plaintively.
“Is it late, mother?” asked Nan, who never missed any of her mother’s movements. “Ten minutes past seven! No wonder the afternoon seemed long.”
“No one found it long but Nan,” observed Dulce, with an arch glance at her sister at which Nan slightly colored, but took no further notice. “By the bye,” she continued, as though struck by a sudden recollection, “what can have become of Dick this afternoon? he so seldom fails us without telling us beforehand.”
“That will soon be explained,” observed Phillis, oracularly, as the gate-bell sounded, and was immediately followed by sharp footsteps on the gravel and the unceremonious entrance of a young man through the open window.
“Better late than never,” exclaimed two of the girls. Nan said, “Why, what has made you play truant, Dick?” in a slightly injured voice. But Mrs. Challoner merely smiled at him, and said nothing; young men were her natural enemies, and she knew it. She was civil to them and endured their company, and that was all.
Dick Mayne was not a formidable-looking individual; he was a strong, thick-set young fellow, with broad shoulders, not much above middle height, and decidedly plain, except in his mother’s eyes; and she thought even Dick’s sandy hair beautiful.
But in spite of his plainness he was a pleasant, well-bred young fellow, with a fund of good humor and drollery, and a pair of honest eyes that people learned to trust. Every one liked him, and no one ever said a word in his dispraise; and for the rest, he could tyrannize as royally as any other young man who is his family’s sole blessing.
“It was all my ill luck,” grumbled Dick. “Trevanion of Exeter came over to our place, and of course the mater pressed him to stay for luncheon, and then nothing would do but a long walk over Hillberry Downs.”
“Why did you not bring him here?” interrupted Dulce, with a pout. “You tiresome Dick, when you must know what a godsend a strange young man is in these wilds!” 11