“It's all settled, granny dear,” he says, as he picks out two letters and hands them to Ted; “I've had a letter from Marie-Celeste and one from Mr. Harris, and he'll be down to-morrow on the three-o'clock train.”
“My goodness!” mutters Ted under his breath, staring at Chris a moment in blank astonishment, and then straightway pretends to be all absorbed in his own mail. One or two college bills, forwarded by Harry Allyn from Oxford, were all there was to it, for, alas! there were no home letters for Ted in these days of self-imposed exile from kith and kin. The bills, however, gave him a chance to pull himself together, as he made a ruse of carefully examining them, while his heart thumped like a trip-hammer at the thought of Uncle Fritz coming down to Nuneham and finding him stranded there, helpless, good-for-nothing fellow that he felt himself to be.
“You say you saw a great deal of him on the steamer, Chris?” said Mrs. Hartley, who had seated herself in the nearest chair, awaiting the budget of news that Chris always endeavored to bring out from Nuneham, for the enlivening of the old people.
“Yes, granny, a great deal. I really don't know how he would have managed but for me.”
“That's cool,” thought Ted; “I'm sure Uncle Fritz seems quite able to take care of himself.”
“And he's a good-looking little fellow, is he, Chris?”
“Good-looking and good-natured, granny dear; you'll take to him right from the start.”
Well, this was passing comprehension! Uncle Fritz a good-looking, good-natured little fellow; and forgetting everything else in his amazement, Ted turned from Chris to Mrs. Hartley, and back again to Chris, in hopeless bewilderment, while they, wholly unobservant, continued to converse in what seemed to him most idiotic fashion.
They talked about his illness, and of how kind Marie-Celeste and her Cousin Harold had been to him, and of what wonders they hoped Nuneham would do for him, and of how, for his own sake, they must continue to keep him busy in little matters about the farm.