"Be quiet," whispered Nora.
"I can't be quiet! Those dreadful little monkey things are under the table, nibbling at my ankles, I shall have to scream!"
"You can't scream. Don't disgrace your country. Lady Margaret will hear us, I much fear!"
"She's making tea at the other table. Besides, Mrs. Darrel and Eddy are talking to her, Nora. Are you sure that big dog is safe? Did you hear him growl? It was an awfully fierce-sounding growl! And, Nora, I think one of the snakes is loose. There were six in the box and I can count only five—yes, Lady Margaret, the tea is quite right. It is delicious."
But though, in truth it was delicious, and though equally to be praised were the thin bread and butter, the Scotch shortbread from Edinburgh, and the English plum cake, Mrs. Morris never enjoyed a repast less. She spent her time making little sorties with her feet at the marmosets, which took it for play and returned to the attack with new zest; and she whispered to Nora that she was morally sure the sixth snake was crawling up her chair.
Nora, herself, was not at ease; nevertheless, her patriotic politeness conquered; she ate everything, looked at everything, praised everything. Lady Margaret found her "most agreeable."
Mrs. Darrel had seen the snakes too often to be disturbed, and Edmund was in his element. As for Oscar, he fell into sad disgrace—he kicked the marmosets. Lady Margaret was too kind to say anything; but Mrs. Morris did the subject justice all the way home. "At least you might have kicked them, quietly, under the table," said she; "but no, you do it sideways in full view of everyone!"
The next day the party journeyed on towards London. The sun shone brightly and the weather, which had been so abnormally cold as to require overcoats, or as the English term them, "top coats," grew warmer, so that there was nothing to mar enjoyment unless it were the lack of harmony between the two boys. This still continued. If there were times when Edmund felt his dislike yielding ever so slightly to Oscar's good humor and gay spirits, his pride and his contempt for his cousin stiffened it at once.
It was two days after their arrival in a quiet town near London where they were to stay a few days for rest at a picturesque old inn, that Mrs. Morris received a letter from Mrs. Darrel. She read it at the breakfast table. Before she was half down the first page she turned to Nora: "There! Didn't I tell you one of those snakes was gone? Listen to this: 'Poor Lady Margaret is in such distress over losing her pet snake, the one she called Marcus Aurelius. She thinks she didn't replace the cover of the box securely the day you were there, for she hasn't seen it since. She fears it crawled away and wandered into the village and was killed. Isn't she a dear old goose?'"
"Was it the little trick-snake?" said Oscar. "What a shame!"