Those were the idle members upon the hearth-rug. On the sofa, with a small table to herself, and a tall embroidery frame before her, nearly hiding her slight person, sat Mrs. Ernescliffe, her pretty head occasionally looking out over the top of her work to smile an answer, and her artistically arranged hair and the crispness of her white dress and broad blue ribbons marking that there was a step in life between her and her sisters; her husband sat beside her on the sofa, with a red volume in his hand, with ‘Orders,’ the only word visible above the fingers, one of which was keeping his place. Hector looked very happy and spirited, though his visage was not greatly ornamented by a moustache, sandier even than his hair, giving effect to every freckle on his honest face. A little behind was Mary, winding one of Blanche’s silks over the back of a chair, and so often looking up to revel in the contemplation of Harry’s face, that her skein was in a wild tangle, which she studiously concealed lest the sight should compel Richard to come and unravel it with those wonderful fingers of his.
Richard and Ethel were arranging the ‘sick albums’ which they had constructed—one of cheap religious prints, with texts and hymns, to be lent in cases of lingering illness; the other, commonly called the ‘profane,’ of such scraps as might please a sick child, pictures from worn-out books or advertisements, which Ethel was colouring—Aubrey volunteering aid that was received rather distrustfully, as his love of effect caused him to array the model school-children in colours gaudy enough, as Gertrude complained, ‘to corrupt a saint.’ Nor was his dilettante help more appreciated at a small stand, well provided with tiny drawers, and holding a shaded lamp, according to Gertrude, ‘burning something horrible ending in gen, that would kill anybody but Tom, who managed it,’ but which threw a beautiful light upon the various glass dishes, tubes, and slides, and the tall brass microscope that Tom was said to love better than all his kith and kin, and which afforded him occupation for his leisure moments.
‘I say, Harry,’ he asked, ‘did you get my letter?’
‘Your letter—of what date? I got none since Mary’s of the second of May, when every one was down in the fever. Poor old Ward, I never was more shocked; what is become of the young ones?’
‘Oh! you must ask Mary, Miss Ward is a bosom friend of hers.’
‘What! the girl that sang like the lark? I must hear her again. But she won’t be in tune for singing now, poor thing! What are they doing? Henry Ward taken to the practice? He used to be the dirtiest little sneak going, but I hope he is mended now.’
‘Ask my father,’ said mischievous Tom; and Dr. May answered not, nor revealed his day’s annoyance with Henry.
‘He is doing his best to make a home for his brother and sisters,’ said Richard.
‘My letter,’ said Tom, ‘was written in Whitsun week; I wish you had had it.’
‘Ay, it would have been precious from its rarity,’ said Harry. ‘What commission did it contain, may I ask?’
‘You have not by good luck brought me home a Chinese flea?’
‘He has all the fleas in creation,’ said Daisy confidentially, ‘cats’ and dogs’, and hedgehogs’, and human; and you would have been twice as welcome if you had brought one.’
‘I’ve brought no present to nobody. I’d got my eye on a splendid ivory junk, for Blanche’s wedding present, at Canton, but I couldn’t even speak to send any one after it. You have uncommon bad luck for a sailor’s relatives.’
‘As long as you bring yourself home we don’t care,’ said Blanche, treating the loss of the junk with far more resignation than did Tom that of the flea.
‘If you only had a morsel of river mud sticking anywhere,’ added Tom, ‘you don’t know the value the infusoria might be.’
‘I had a good deal more than a morsel sticking to me once,’ said Harry; ‘it was owing to my boat’s crew that I am not ever so many feet deep in it now, like many better men. They never lost sight of me, and somehow hauled me out.’
Gertrude gave him a hug, and Mary’s eyes got so misty, that her skein fell into worse entanglements than ever.
‘Were you conscious?’ asked Ethel.
‘I can’t say. I’m clear of nothing but choking and gasping then, and a good while after. It was a treacherous, unlucky affair, and I’m afraid I shall miss the licking of rascally John Chinaman. If all I heard at Plymouth is true, we may have work handy to home.’
‘At home you may say,’ said his father, ‘Dulce et, &c. is our motto. Didn’t you know what a nest of heroes we have here to receive you? Let me introduce you to Captain Ernescliffe, of the Dorset Volunteer Rifle Corps; Private Thomas May, of the Cambridge University Corps; and Mr. Aubrey Spencer May, for whom I have found a rifle, and am expected to find a uniform as soon as the wise heads have settled what colour will be most becoming.’
‘Becoming! No, papa!’ indignantly shouted Aubrey: ‘it is the colour that will be most invisible in skirmishing.’
‘Gray, faced with scarlet,’ said Hector, decidedly.
‘Yes, that is the colour of the invincible Dorsets,’ said Dr. May. ‘There you see our great authority with his military instructions in his hand.’
‘No, sir,’ replied Hector, ‘it’s not military instructions, it is Crauford’s General Orders.’
‘And,’ added the Doctor, ‘there’s his bride working the colours, and Mary wanting to emulate her.’
‘I don’t think George will ever permit us to have colours,’ said Ethel; ‘he says that Rifles have no business with them, for that they are of no use to skirmishers.’
‘The matter has been taken out of George’s hands,’ said Aubrey; ‘there would not have been a volunteer in the country if he had his way.’
‘Yes,’ explained Ethel, ‘the real soldier can’t believe in volunteers, nor cavalry in infantry; but he is thoroughly in for it now.’
‘Owing to his Roman matron’ quoth Tom. ‘It was a wonderful opening for public spirit when Lady Walkinghame insisted on Sir Henry refusing the use of the park for practice, for fear we should make targets of the children. So the Spartan mother at Abbotstoke, gallantly setting Margaret aside, sent for the committee at once to choose the very best place in the park.’
‘Papa is chairman of the committee,’ added Aubrey, ‘he is mayor this year, so we must encourage it.’
‘And Aubrey hit four times at a hundred yards,’ triumphantly declared Gertrude, ‘when Edward Anderson and Henry Ward only got a ball in by accident.’
‘Henry Ward ought to be shot at himself,’ was Aubrey’s sentiment, ‘for not letting Leonard be in the corps.’
‘The fellow that you brought to Maplewood?’ asked Hector. ‘I thought he was at school.’
‘Didn’t you know that old Hoxton has given leave to any of the sixth form to drill and practise? and that trumpery fellow, Henry, says he can’t afford the outfit, though his sister would have given the uniform.’
‘Let me tell you, young folks,’ said the Doctor, ‘that you are not to suppose it always hails crack rifles on all sorts of improved systems, as it does when Captain Hector is in the house.’
‘They are only on trial, sir,’ apologized Hector.
‘Very odd then that they all have an eagle and H. E. on them,’ observed the Doctor dryly.
‘Oh! they’ll take them again, or I shall find a use for them,’ said Hector.
‘Well, if Henry can’t afford two,’ said Aubrey, holding to his point, ‘he ought to give up to his brother; he knows no more how to handle a rifle—’