“How does he seem now?” said Geraldine, as Lancelot came into the drawing-room of St. Andrew’s Rock at Rockquay, in the full glare of a cold east windy May evening.

“Pretty well fagged out, but that does not greatly matter. I say, Cherry, how will you stand this? Till I saw you in this den, I had no notion how shabby, and dull, and ugly it is.”

“My dear Lance, if you did but know how refreshing it is to see anything shabby, and dull, and ugly,” Mrs. Grinstead answered with imitative inflections, which set Anna Vanderkist off into a fit of laughter, infecting both her uncle and aunt. The former gravely said—

“If you had only mentioned it in time, I could have gratified you more effectually.”

“I suppose it is Aunt Cherry’s charity,” said Anna, recovering. “The reflection that but for her the poor natives would never have been able to go to their German baths.”

“Oh, no such philanthropy, my dear. It is homeliness, or rather homeyness, that is dear to my bourgeoise mind. I was afraid of spick-and-span, sap-green aestheticism, but those curtains have done their own fading in pleasing shades, that good old sofa can be lain upon, and there’s a real comfortable crack on that frame; while as to the chiffonier, is not it the marrow of the one Mrs. Froggatt left us, where Wilmet kept all the things in want of mending?”

“Ah! didn’t you shudder when she turned the key?” said Lance.

“Not knowing what was good for me.”

“But you will send for some of our things and make it nice,” entreated Anna, “or Gerald will never stay here.”

“Never fear; we’ll have it presentable by the vacation. As for Uncle Clement, he would never see whether he was in a hermit’s cell, if he only had one arm-chair and one print from Raffaelle.”

There was a certain arch ring in her voice that had long been absent, and Anna looked joyous as she waited on them both.

“I am glad you brought her,” said Lance, as she set off with Uncle Clement’s tea.

“Yes, she would not hear of the charms of the season.”

“So much the better for her. She is a good girl, and will be all the happier down here, as well as better. There’s a whole hive of Merrifields to make merry with her; and, by the bye, Cherry, what should you think of housing a little chap for the school here where Fergus Merrifield is?”

“Your dear little Felix? Delightful!”

“Ouf! No, he is booked for our grammar school.”

“The grammar school was not good for any of you, except the one whom nothing hurt.”

“It is very different now. I have full confidence in the head, and the tone is improved throughout. Till my boys are ready for a public school I had rather they were among our own people. No, Cherry, I can’t do it, I can’t give up the delight of him yet; no, I can’t, nor lose his little voice out of the choir, and have his music spoilt.”

“I don’t wonder.”

“I don’t think I spoil him. I really have flogged him once,” said Lance, half wistfully, half playfully.

“How proud you are of it.”

“It was for maltreating little Joan Vanderkist, though if it had only been her brother, I should have said, ‘Go it, boys.’ It was not till afterwards that it turned out that Joan was too loyal not to bear the penalty of having tied our little Audrey into a chair to be pelted with horse-chestnuts.”

“At Adrian’s bidding?”

“Of course. I fancy the Harewood boys set him on. And what I thought of was sending Adrian here to be schooled at Mrs. Edgar’s, boarded by you, mothered by Anna, and altogether saved from being made utterly detestable, as he will inevitably be if he remains to tyrannize over Vale Leston.”

“Would his mother consent?”

“You know he is entirely in Clement’s power.”

“It would only be another worry for Clement.”

“He need not have much of him, and I believe he would prefer to have him under his own eye; and Anna will think it bliss to have him, though what it may prove is another question. She will keep you from being too much bothered.”

“My dear Lance, will you never understand, that as furze and thistles are to a donkey, so are shabbiness and bother to me—a native element?”

In the morning Clement, raised on his pillows in bed, showed himself highly grateful for the proposal about his youngest ward.

“It is very good of you, Cherry,” he said. “That poor boy has been very much on my mind. This is the way to profit by my enforced leisure.”

“That’s the way to make me dread him. You were to lie fallow.”

“Not exactly. I have thirteen or fourteen years’ reading and thinking to make up. I have done no more than get up a thing cursorily since I left Vale Leston.”

“You are welcome to read and think, provided it is nothing more recent than St. Chrysostom.”

“So here is the letter to Alda,” giving it to her open.

“Short and to the purpose,” she said.

“Alda submits to the inevitable,” he said. “Don’t appear as if she had a choice.”

“Only mention the alleviations. No, you are not to get up yet. There’s no place for you to sit in, and the east wind is not greatly mitigated by the sea air. Shall I send Anna to read to you?”

“In half-an-hour, if she is ready then; meantime, those two books, if you please.”

She handed him his Greek Testament and Bishop Andrews, and repaired to the drawing-room, where she found Anna exulting in the decorations brought from home, and the flowers brought in from an itinerant barrow.

“I have been setting down what they must send us from home—your own chair and table, and the Liberty rugs, and the casts of St. Cecilia and little St. Cyrillus for those bare corners, and I am going out for a terra-cotta vase.”

“Oh, my dear, the room is charming; but don’t let us get too dependent on pretty things. They demoralize as much or more than ugly ones.”

“Do you mean that they are a luxury? Is it not right to try to have everything beautiful?”

“I don’t know, my dear.”

“Don’t know!” exclaimed Anna.

“Yes, my dear, I really get confused sometimes as to what is mere lust of the eye, and what is regard to whatever things are lovely. I believe the principle is really in each case to try whether the high object or the gratification of the senses should stand first.”

“Well,” said Anna, laughing, “I suppose it is a high object not to alienate Gerald, as would certainly be done by the culture of the ugly—”

“Or rather of that which pretends to be the reverse, and is only fashion,” said her aunt, who meantime was moving about, adding nameless grace by her touch to all Anna’s arrangements.

“May I send for the things then?” said Anna demurely.

“Oh yes, certainly; and you had better get the study arm-chair for your uncle. There is nothing so comfortable here. But I have news for you. What do you say to having little Adrian here, to go to school with the Merrifield boy?”

“What fun! what fun! How delicious!” cried the sister, springing about like a child.

“I suspected that the person to whom he would give most trouble would feel it most pleasure.”

“You don’t know what a funny, delightful child he is! You didn’t see him driving all the little girls in a team four-in-hand.”

It would be much to say that Mrs. Grinstead was enchanted by this proof of his charms; but they were interrupted by Marshall, the polite, patronizing butler, bringing in a card. Miss Mohun would be glad to know how Mr. Underwood was, and whether there was anything that she could do for Mrs. Grinstead.

Of course she was asked to come in, and thus they met, the quick, slim, active little spinster, whose whole life had been work, and the far younger widow, whose vocation had been chiefly home-making. Their first silent impressions were—

“I hope she is not going to be pathetic,” and—

“She is enough to take one’s breath away. But I think she has tact.”

After a few exchanges of inquiry and answer, Miss Mohun said—

“My niece Gillian is burning to see you, after all your kindness to her.”

“I shall be very glad. This is not quite a land of strangers.”

“I told her I was sure you would not want her to-day.”

“Thank you. My brother is hardly up to afternoon visitors yet, and we have not been able to arrange his refuge.”

“You have transformed this room.”

“Or Anna has.”

On which Miss Mohun begged for Miss Vanderkist to meet her nieces by and by at tea. Gillian would call for her at four o’clock, and show her the way that it was hoped might soon be quite natural to her.

“Gillian’s ‘Aunt Jane,’” said Anna, when the visitor had tripped out. “I never quite understood her way of talking of her. I think she worried her.”

“Your pronouns are confused, Annie. Which worried which? Or was it mutual?”

“On the whole,” laughed Anna back, “I prefer an aunt to be waited on to one who pokes me up.”

“Aunt Log to Aunt Stork? To be poked will be wholesome.”

In due time there was a ring at the front door; Gillian Merrifield was indulged with a kiss and smile from the heroine of her worship, and Anna found herself in the midst of a garland of bright girls. She was a contrast to them, with her fair Underwood complexion, her short plump Vanderkist figure, and the mourning she still wore for the fatherly Uncle Grinstead; while the Merrifield party were all in different shades of the brunette, and wore bright spring raiment.

They had only just come down the steps when they were greeted by a young clergyman, who said he was on his way to inquire for Mr. Underwood, and as he looked as if he expected a reply from Miss Vanderkist, she said her uncle was better, and would be glad to see Mr. Brownlow when he had rested after his journey.

“I hope he will not bother him,” she added; “I know who he is now. He was at Whittingtonia for a little while, but broke down. There’s no remembering all the curates there. My aunt likes his mother. Does he belong to this St. Andrew’s Church?”

“No, to the old one. You begin to see the tower.”

“Is that where you go?”

“To the old one in the morning, but we have a dear little old chapel at Clipstone, where Mr. Brownlow comes for the afternoon. It is all a good deal mixed up together.”

Then another voice—

“Do you think Mr. Underwood would preach to us? Mr. Brownlow says he never heard any one like him.”

Anna stood still.

“Nobody is to dare to mention preaching to Uncle Clement for the next six months, or they will deserve never to hear another sermon in their lives.”

“What an awful penalty!”

“For shame, Dolores! Now,” as the short remainder of a steep street was surmounted, “here, as you may see, is the great hotel, and next beyond is Aunt Jane’s, Beechcroft. On beyond, where you see that queer tower, is Cliff House, Mr. White’s, who married our Aunt Adeline, only they are in Italy; and then comes Carrara, Captain Henderson’s—”

“You are expected to rave about Mrs. Henderson’s beauty,” said the cousin, Dolores Mohun, as she opened Miss Mohun’s gate, between two copper beeches, while Anna listened to the merry tongues, almost bewildered by the chatter, so unlike the seclusion and silent watching of the last month; but when Mysie Merrifield asked, “Is it not quite overwhelming?” she said—

“Oh no! it is like being among them all at Vale Leston. My sisters always tell me my tongue wants greasing when I come down.”

Her tongue was to have exercise enough among the bevy of damsels who surrounded her in Miss Mohun’s drawing-room—four Merrifields, ranging from twenty-two to twelve years old, and one cousin, Dolores Mohun, with a father in New Zealand.

“Won’t you be in the Mouse-trap?” presently asked number three, by name Valetta.

“If I did not know that she would drag it in!” cried Dolores.

“What may it be?” asked Anna.

“An essay society and not an essay society,” was the lucid answer. “Gillian said you would be sure to belong to it.”

“I am afraid I can’t if it takes much time,” said Anna in a pleading tone. “My uncle is very far from well, and I have a good deal to do in the way of reading to him, and my little brother is coming to go to school with yours.”

“Mr. Underwood brought his little boy,” said Gillian. “Fergus said he was one of the jolliest little chaps he had ever seen.”

“Uncle Reginald quite lost his heart to him,” said Mysie, “and Aunt Jane says he is a charming little fellow.”

“Oh, Felix Underwood!” said Anna. “Adrian is much more manly. You should see him ride and climb trees.”

The comparative value of brothers and cousins was very apparent. However, it was fixed that Anna should attend the Mouse-trap, and hear and contribute as she could find time.

“I did the Erl King,” said Valetta.

“Oh, spare us, Val,” cried her sister Gillian. “Every one has done that.”

“Gerald parodied mine,” said Anna.

“Oh, go on.”

“I can’t recollect any more, but the Erl King’s daughter is a beggar-woman, and it ends with—

Some of the party were scandalized, others laughed as much or more than the effusion deserved.

“We accept drawings,” added another voice, “and if any one does anything extraordinarily good in that way, or in writing, it makes a little book.”

“We have higher designs than that,” said Gillian. “We want to print the cream.”

“For the benefit of the school board—no, the board school.”

“Oh! oh! Valetta!” cried the general voice.

“The thing is,” explained Gillian, “that we must build a new school for the out-liers of St. Kenelm’s, or ‘my lords’ will be down on us, and we shall be swamped by board schools.”

“Aunt Jane is frantic about it,” said Dolores Mohun.

“There’s no escape from school board worries!” exclaimed Anna. “They helped to demolish Uncle Clement.”

“There is to be a sale of work, and a concert, and all sorts of jolly larks,” added Valetta.

“Larks! Oh, Val!”

“Larks aren’t slang. They are in the dictionary,” declared Valetta.

“By the bye, she has not heard the rules of the Mice,” put in Mysie.

“I’ll say them,” volunteered Valetta the irrepressible. “Members of the Mouse-trap never utter slang expressions, never wear live birds—I mean dead ones—in their hats.”

“Is an ostrich feather a live bird or a dead?” demanded Anna.

“And,” said Dolores, “what of the feather screens that the old Miss Smiths have been making all the winter-circles of pheasants’ feathers and peacocks’ eyes outside a border of drakes’ curls?”

“Oh, like ostriches they don’t count, since peacocks don’t die, and drakes and pheasants must,” said Gillian.

“We have been getting ready for this sale ever so long,” said Mysie. “Aunt Jane has a working party every Friday for it.”

“The fit day,” said Dolores, “for she is a perfect victim to other people’s bad work, and spends the evening in stitching up and making presentable the wretched garments they turn out.”

“The next rule—” began Valetta, but Gillian mercilessly cut her short.

“You know clever people, Anna. Do you know how to manage about our Mouse-trap book? Our bookseller here is a school-board man, all on the wrong side, and when I tried to feel our way, he made out that the printing and getting it up would cost a great deal more than we could risk.”

“It is a pity that Uncle Lance is gone home,” said Anna. “He could tell you all about it.”

“Could you not write to him?”

“Oh, yes, but I know he will want to see a specimen before he can make any estimate.”

It was agreed that the specimen should be forthcoming on the next occasion, and Miss Mohun coming home, and tea coming in, the conference was ended. Anna began to unravel the relationships.

Dolores Mohun was a niece of Lady Merrifield. She had lost her own mother early, and after living with the Merrifields for a year, had been taken by her father to New Zealand, where he had an appointment. He was a man of science, and she had been with him at Rotaruna during the terrible volcanic eruption, when there had been danger and terror enough to bring out her real character, and at the same time to cause an amount of intimacy with a young lady visitor little older than herself, which had suddenly developed into a second marriage of her father. In this state of things she had gladly availed herself of the home offered her at Clipstone, and had gone home under the escort of her Aunt Phyllis (Mrs. Harry May), who was going with her husband to spend a year in England. Dolores had greatly improved in all ways during her two years’ absence, and had become an affectionate, companionable, and thoughtful member of the Merrifield household, though still taking a line of her own.

The Kalliope whom Gillian had befriended, to her own detriment, was now the very beautiful Mrs. Henderson, wife to the managing partner in the marble works. She continued to take a great interest in the young women employed in designing and mosaics, and had a class of them for reading and working. Dolores had been asked to tell first Aunt Jane’s G. F. S. (Girl’s Friendly Society) girls, and afterwards Mrs. Henderson’s, about her New Zealand experiences and the earthquake, and this developed into regular weekly lectures on volcanoes and on colonies. She did these so well, that she was begged to repeat them for the girls at the High School, and she had begun to get them up very carefully, studying the best scientific books she could get, and thinking she saw her vocation.

Mrs. Henderson was quite a power in the place. Her brother Alexis was an undergraduate, but had been promised a tutorship for the vacation. He seldom appeared at Carrara, shrinking from what recalled the pain and shame that he had suffered; while Petros worked under Captain Henderson, and Theodore was still in the choir at St. Matthew’s. Maura had become the darling of Mr. White, and was much beloved by Mrs. White, though there had been a little alarm the previous year, when Lord Rotherwood and his son came down to open a public park or garden on the top of the cliffs, where Lord Rotherwood’s accident had occurred. Lord Ivinghoe, a young Guardsman, had shown himself enough disposed to flirt with the pretty little Greek to make the prudent very glad that her home was on the Italian mountains.

Gillian was always Mrs. Henderson’s friend, but Gillian’s mind was full of other things. For her father had reluctantly promised, that if one of her little brothers got a scholarship at one of the public schools, Gillian might fulfil her ardent desire of going to a ladies’ college. Wilfred was a hopeless subject. It might be doubted if he could have succeeded. He had apparently less brain power than some of the family, and he certainly would not exert what he had. His mother had dragged him through holiday tasks; but nobody else could attempt to make him work when at home, and Gillian’s offers had been received with mockery or violence. So all her hopes centred on Fergus, who, thanks to Aunt Jane’s evening influence over his lessons, stood foremost in Mrs. Edgar’s school, and was to go up to try for election at Winchester College at the end of the term. Were Gillian’s hopes to be ruined by his devotion to the underground world?