On the mantelpiece lay a comb and several hairpins. There are few more mysterious things than hairpins. So far back as we can go into the past we see woman putting up her hair. It is said that married men lose their awe of hairpins and clean their pipes with them.
A pair of curling-tongs had a chair to themselves near Nell, and she wore a short blue dressing-jacket. Probably when she woke from her reverie she meant to do something to her brown hair. When old gentlemen called at the Lodge they frequently told their host that he had a very pretty daughter; when younger gentlemen called they generally called again, and if Nell thought they admired her the first time she spared no pains to make them admire her still more the next time. This was to make them respect their own judgment.
It was little Will Abinger who had set Nell a-dreaming, for from wondering if he was home yet for the Christmas holidays her thoughts wandered to his sister Mary, and then to his brother Dick. She thought longer of Dick in his lonely London chambers than of the others, and by and by she was saying to herself petulantly, 'I wish people wouldn't go dying and leaving me money.' Mr. Meredith, and still more Mrs. Meredith, thought that their only daughter, an heiress, would be thrown away on Richard Abinger, barrister-at-law, whose blood was much bluer than theirs, but who was, nevertheless, understood to be as hard-up as his father.
The door-bell rang, and two callers were ushered into the drawing-room without Nell's knowing it. One of them left his companion to talk to Mrs. Meredith, and clattered upstairs in search of the daughter of the house. He was a bright-faced boy of thirteen, with a passion for flinging stones, and, of late, he had worn his head in the air, not because he was conceited, but that he might look with admiration upon the face of the young gentleman downstairs.
Bouncing into the parlour, he caught sight of the object of his search before she could turn her head.
'I say, Nell, I'm back.'
Miss Meredith jumped from her chair.
'Will!' she cried.
When the visitor saw this young lady coming toward him quickly, he knew what she was after and tried to get out of her way. But Nell kissed him.
'Now, then,' he said indignantly, pushing her from him.
Will looked round him fearfully, and then closed the door.
'You might have waited till the door was shut, at any rate,' he grumbled. 'It would have been a nice thing if any one had seen you!'
'Why, what would it have mattered, you horrid little boy!' said Nell.
'Little boy! I'm bigger than you, at any rate. As for its not mattering—but you don't know who is downstairs. The captain——'
'Captain!' cried Nell.
She seized her curling-tongs.
'Yes,' said Will, watching the effect of his words, 'Greybrooke, the captain of the school. He is giving me a week just now.'
Will said this as proudly as if his guest was Napoleon Bonaparte, but Nell laid down her curling-irons. The intruder interpreted her action and resented it.
'You're not his style,' he said; 'he likes bigger women.'
'Oh, does he?' said Nell, screwing up her little Greek nose contemptuously.
'He's eighteen,' said Will.
'A mere schoolboy.'
'Why, he shaves.'
'Doesn't the master whip him for that?'
'What? Whip Greybrooke!'
Will laughed hysterically.
'You should just see him at breakfast with old Jerry. Why, I've seen him myself, when half a dozen of us were asked to tea by Mrs. Jerry, and though we were frightened to open our mouths, what do you think Greybrooke did?'
'Something silly, I should say.'
'He asked old Jerry, as cool as you like, to pass the butter! That's the sort of fellow Greybrooke is.'
'How is Mary?'
'Oh, she's all right. No, she has a headache. I say, Greybrooke says Mary's rather slow.'
'He must be a horror,' said Nell, 'and I don't see why you brought him here.'
'I thought you would like to see him,' explained Will. 'He made a hundred and three against Rugby, and was only bowled off his pads.'
'Well,' said Nell, yawning, 'I suppose I must go down and meet your prodigy.'
Will, misunderstanding, got between her and the door.
'You're not going down like that,' he said anxiously, with a wave of his hand that included the dressing-jacket and the untidy hair. 'Greybrooke's so particular, and I told him you were a jolly girl.'
'What else did you tell him?' asked Nell suspiciously.
'Not much,' said Will, with a guilty look.
'I know you told him something else?'
'I told him you—you were fond of kissing people.'
'Oh, you nasty boy, Will—as if kissing a child like you counted!'
'Never mind,' said Will soothingly, 'Greybrooke's not the fellow to tell tales. Besides, I know you girls can't help it. Mary's just the same.'
'You are a goose, Will, and the day will come when you'll give anything for a kiss.'
'You've no right to bring such charges against a fellow,' said Will indignantly, strutting to the door.
Half-way downstairs he turned and came back.
'I say, Nell,' he said, 'you—you, when you come down, you won't kiss Greybrooke?'
Nell drew herself up in a way that would have scared any young man but Will.
'He's so awfully particular,' Will continued apologetically.
'Was it to tell me this you came upstairs?'
'No, honour bright, it wasn't. I only came up in case you should want to kiss me, and to—to have it over.'
Nell was standing near Will, and before he could jump back she slapped his face.
The snow was dancing outside in a light wind when Nell sailed into the drawing-room. She could probably still inform you how she was dressed, but that evening Will and the captain could not tell Mary. The captain thought it was a reddish dress or else blue; but it was all in squares like a draught-board, according to Will. Forty minutes had elapsed since Will visited her upstairs, and now he smiled at the conceit which made her think that the captain would succumb to a pretty frock. Of course Nell had no such thought. She always dressed carefully because—well, because there is never any saying.
Though Miss Meredith froze Greybrooke with a glance, he was relieved to see her. Her mother had discovered that she knew the lady who married his brother, and had asked questions about the baby. He did not like it. These, he thought, were things you should pretend not to know about. He had contrived to keep his nieces and nephews dark from the fellows at school, though most of them would have been too just to attach any blame to him. Of this baby he was specially ashamed, because they had called it after him.
Mrs. Meredith was a small, stout lady, of whose cleverness her husband spoke proudly to Nell, but never to herself. When Nell told her how he had talked, she exclaimed, 'Nonsense!' and then waited to hear what else he had said. She loved him, but probably no woman can live with a man for many years without having an indulgent contempt for him, and wondering how he is considered a good man of business. Mrs. Meredith, who was a terribly active woman, was glad to leave the entertainment of her visitors to Nell, and that young lady began severely by asking 'how you boys mean to amuse yourselves?'
'Do you keep rabbits?' she said to the captain sweetly.
'I say, Nell!' cried Will warningly.
'I have not kept rabbits,' Greybrooke replied, with