"Bless 'em again!" echoed Mr. Jack, heartily, ignoring the reproof. "A smarter, smilinger pair of beauties never came in my range on sea or land. There's Master Donald, now, with the spirit of a man-o'-war in his boy's hull. My, but he's a fine one! And yet so civil and biddable! Always full set when there's fun in the air. Can't tell you, Mistress Blum, how I dote on that 'ere boy. Then there's Miss Dorothy, – the trimmest, neatest little craft I ever see. It seemed, t'other day, that the deck was slippin' from under me, when I see that child scudding 'round the lot on Lady's back. You couldn't 'a' told, at first, whether she was a-runnin' away with Lady, or Lady a-runnin' away with her. But didn't the skeer follow mighty quick! I tell you the wind blew four quarters to once fur a spell, but afore I could get there Master Donald had her. Whew! It was mirac'l'us! Never see such a boy – no, nor girl neither – as them two twins!"
"Nor I," said Liddy, fervently.
"And what babbies they were!" proceeded Jack. "I can see 'em now, as I first saw 'em after the wreck, – poor, thin, pinched mites, 'most sneezin' their little heads off. And then, when you took hold on 'em, Mistress Blum, with your tender care, night an' day, day an' night, always studyin' their babby naturs so partic'lar and insistin' upon their havin' their grog from one tap – "
"Mr. Jack, I'm ashamed of you! How often I've requested you not to put it that way! Milk from one cow is a common-sense rule. Every one knows that babies brought up by hand must be treated just so particular. Well, they throve on it, didn't they?" – her eyes kindling.
"Throve, my hearty? – ahem; beg parding! Throve! Why, they just bounded! I never see anything like it! The brightest, liveliest little pair o' sea-gulls I ever set eyes on; an' grow? Grow, Miss Blum? Well, throw me to the sharks if ever I see anything grow like them babbies!"
"Didn't they!" exclaimed Miss Blum, so happy in recalling her success with the "dear, darling little D's" that she quite forgot to check Mr. Jack's inelegance "Ah, many a time I used to stand and wonder at them when I should have been workin'! It seemed to me as if they improved hourly. Why, do you know, Mr. Jack – "
A bell rang violently, as if some one were in trouble.
"It's the master!" cried Liddy, and as she sprang up the stairs, Jack followed her rapidly and lightly on tiptoe.
But it was not Mr. George at all. When Liddy hastily opened the library door, with a "Did you ring, sir?" and Mr. Reed responded with a surprised "No, thank you!" while the visitor coolly stared at her, the good woman ran up to the second story to inquire further, and Jack went down again, whistling softly to himself.
Lydia found Donald in tribulation. He had remained up to write a letter to a friend at boarding-school, and somehow had managed to upset his inkstand. His attempts to prevent serious damage had only increased the mischief. A pale but very large ink-stain stared up at him from the wet carpet.
"De-struction!" exclaimed Lydia, as, standing at the open door, she took in the situation at a glance. "If you'd only rubbed it with blotting-paper the instant it happened," she continued, kneeling upon the floor, and rubbing vigorously with a piece that she had snatched from the table, "there wouldn't have been a trace of it by this time. Sakes!" glancing at the fine towel which Donald had recklessly used, "if you haven't ruined that too! Well," she sighed, slowly rising with a hopeless air, "nothing but sour milk can help the carpet now, and I haven't a drop in the house!"
"Never mind," said Donald; "what's a little ink-stain? You can't expect a bachelor's apartment to look like a parlor. I'll fling the rug over the place – so!"
"Not now, Master Donald. Do wait till it dries!" cried Lydia, checking him in the act, and laughing at his bewildered look. She ran down stairs with a half-reproachful "My, what a boy!" – while Donald, carefully putting a little water into the inkstand, to make up for recent waste, went on with his letter, which, it happened, was all about affairs not immediately connected with this story.
CHAPTER X.
$1
"Hope the young folks are at home," remarked the "long, lank man," with an off-hand air of familiarity, comfortably settling himself in an arm-chair before the smouldering fire, and thrusting out his ungainly feet as far as possible. "Would be glad to make their acquaintance."
"My nephew and niece will not be down again this evening, sir," was the stiff reply.
"Ah? Hardly past nine, too. You hold to old-fashioned customs here, I perceive. 'Early to bed,' etcetera, etcetera. And yet they're no chickens. Let me see; I'm thirty-nine. According to my reckoning, they must carry about fourteen years apiece by this time. Dorothy looks it; but the boy seems younger, in spite of his big ways. Why not sit down, George?"
"Dorothy! – George!" echoed Mr. Reed's thought, indignantly. But with a stern resolve to be patient, he seated himself.
"Look here, George, as this is likely to be a long session, let's have a little more of a blaze here. I got chilled through, waiting for that door to open. Ah, that's something like!"
Meanwhile this cordial person, carefully selecting suitable pieces from the wood-basket on the hearth, and rearranging the fire, had seized the bellows and begun to blow vigorously, nearly shutting up his long figure, like a big clasp-knife, in the act.
"Excuse my making myself at home," he continued, jauntily poking a small log into place with the bellows, and then brushing his seedy trousers with his hand; "it was always my style. Most men that's been knocked about all their lives get shy and wary. But that's not Eben Slade. Well, when are you going to begin?"
"I am ready now, Mr. Slade."
"Pshaw! Don't Mr. Slade me. Call me Eben, plain Eben. Just as Kate did."
Mr. Reed's face flushed painfully.
"See here, George," the visitor went on, suddenly changing his sportive style to a manner that was designed to appear quite confidential and friendly, – "see here, I don't want to quarrel with you nor any other man. This here is just a chat between two almost relatives – sort of left-handed brothers, you know, and for my – "
"Slade!" exclaimed Mr. Reed, savagely, rising from his chair, but at once seating himself again, and speaking with forced calmness: "While I have allowed you this interview, I must request you to understand, now and for all time, as you have understood very plainly heretofore, that there can be no connection or implied relationship between us. For years we have been as strangers, and from this night must remain so!"
"Ex – actly!" assented Slade, cheerily – "the kind of strangers two chaps naturally would be, having the same sister – my sister by blood, yours by adoption."
Certainly this was a strong point with Mr. Slade, for he leaned forward and looked boldly into the other's face, as he finished the sentence.
"Yes," said Mr. Reed, with a solemn dignity, "precisely such strangers as the scape-grace brother of a noble girl must be to those who rescued this girl in her earliest childhood, sheltered her, taught her, honored and loved her as true brothers should, and to whom she clung with all a sister's fondness and loyalty."
"Pre – cisely!" observed Mr. Slade, with a mocking air of being deeply impressed. "Go on."
"You know the conditions under which you were adopted by Squire Hinsley, and Kate was adopted by my father, when you were left orphans, homeless, destitute – "
"Thank you. You are right. Quite destitute; I may say desperately destitute; though as I was six years of age at the time, and Kate but two, I have forgotten the painful particulars. Proceed."
"You know well," continued Mr. Reed, with quiet precision, "the agreement signed, sealed, and delivered, in the presence of witnesses, between my parents and John Hinsley on the one side, and your uncle and lawful guardian, Samuel Slade, on the other. The adoption was absolute. Kate was to have no legal claim on John Hinsley or his family; and you were to have none upon my father and his family. She was to be to my father, in all respects but birth, his own child, – his, Henry Reed's, to support and educate, sharing the fortune of his own children