Eddie flushed angrily, and turned aside a little impatiently. "Uncle Clair is far too good to me already. You don't understand me a bit, Bertie: you never did; or you either, Agnes—no, you don't. You are both quite happy and contented, but I'm not."
"Why?" Bertie asked. "Do, tell us, Eddie! Oh, I know! it's because you have an enemy, and I believe he makes you think all kinds of absurd things. Just tell me who he is, Ted, and I'll thrash him," Bertie whispered eagerly.
"Thrash whom? I don't understand you, Bert." Eddie looked up with a sudden appearance of interest, and Agnes drew a little away: she did not quite understand the turn matters were taking; but Bertie meant to talk the "enemy" question over thoroughly, and pulled Agnes back to add her persuasions to his.
But Eddie looked so thoroughly amazed, that Bertie was quite at a loss how to go on. If his brother had an enemy, he did not seem to know anything about it; still, there were Uncle Clair's words: they must mean something; and at last he repeated them, and said he was determined not to have poor Eddie worried by any one in the world.
"Do you know what it means, Agnes? I don't. Do you know what Uncle Clair meant?"
"I think I can guess," she replied, without looking at either of her cousins. "I believe uncle meant that Eddie's enemy was himself, because you know, dear, very often you won't let yourself be happy, and make yourself quite miserable about nothing at all."
"Oh!" Eddie said, after a long silence, "do you think Uncle Clair meant that?"
"Here he is, and Mr. Murray too," Bertie said, jumping up, and springing forward, forgetting that poor Eddie's face still bore traces of his recent distress, and that Agnes too looked very sad, and not a bit inclined for company. They had not Bertie's happy knack of shaking off unpleasant sensations and being cheerful in a moment. However, Uncle Clair and Mr. Murray were standing beside them, and there was nothing for it but to make the best of the situation, though Eddie, at least, would have gladly been alone, to think over Agnes' words, and ask himself if he really was his own enemy.
CHAPTER XI.—BERTIE GOES BACK TO BUSINESS.
Mr. murray's conversation with Mr. Clair had been a long and interesting one, as far as the boys were concerned. Mr. Murray heard every particular of Mr. Rivers' losses which Mr. Clair knew, and also gained a good insight into the character and temper of the lads. What he heard of Bertie pleased him greatly, especially as it agreed exactly with what Mr. Gregory said; about Eddie he looked a little grave, and puckered up his forehead for full five minutes, as Mr. Clair described his restlessness, discontent, and want of application, and, worst of all, the foolish idea that he was really very clever, and very much misunderstood and unappreciated by his relatives.