Nan kept her own counsel, and never spoke of these things. She said openly that Dick was very nice and very much improved, and that they always missed him sadly during the Oxford terms; but she never breathed a syllable that might make people suspect that this very ordinary young man with the sandy hair was more to her than other young men. Nevertheless Phillis and Dulce knew that such was the case, and Mrs. Challoner understood that the most dangerous enemy to her peace was this lively-spoken Dick.
Dick was very amusing, for he was an eloquent young fellow: nevertheless Mrs. Challoner sighed more than once, and her attention visibly wandered; seeing which, Dick good-humoredly left off talking, and began inspecting the different articles in Nan’s work-basket.
“I am afraid I have given your mother a headache,” he said when they were sitting round the circular table in the low, oddly-shaped dining-room. There was a corner cut off, and the windows were in unexpected places, which made it unlike other rooms; but Dick loved it better than the great dining-room at Longmead; and somehow it never had looked cosier to him than it did this evening. It was somewhat dark, owing to the shade of the veranda: so the lamp was lighted, and the pleasant scent of roses and lilies came through the open windows. A belated wasp hovered round the specimen glasses that Nan had filled; Dick tried to make havoc of the enemy with his table-napkin. The girls’ white dresses suited their fresh young faces. Nan had fastened a crimson rose in her gown; Phillis and Dulce had knots of blue ribbon. “Trevanion does not know what he lost by his obstinacy,” thought Dick, as he glanced round the table.
“What were you and the mother discussing?” asked Dulce, curiously.
“Dick was telling me about his friend. He seemed a very superior young man,” returned Mrs. Challoner. “I suppose you have asked him for your party next week?”
Dick turned very red at this question. “Mater asked him, you may trust her for that. If it were not for father, I think she would turn the whole house out of the windows: every day some one fresh is invited.”
“How delightful! and all in your honor,” exclaimed Dulce, mischievously.
“That spoils the whole thing,” grumbled the heir of the 13 Maynes: “it is a perfect shame that a fellow cannot come of age quietly, without his people making this fuss. I begin to think I was a fool for my pains to refuse the ball.”
“Yes, indeed; just because you were afraid of the supper speeches,” laughed Dulce, “when we all wanted it so.”
“New mind,” returned Dick, sturdily; “the mater shall give us one in the winter, and we will have Godfrey’s band, and I will get all our fellows to come.”