Without a change of countenance, as if he were deaf to her entreaties and threats, he tuned up the banjo, and played a breakdown.
"Comfortable, Nell? That's right. Always strive for contentment, whatever your lot may be. At present your lot is to provide me with a nice, springy seat, and it will so continue to be until you promise—on your honor, mind—that you will not lay a destructive hand on this sweetest of instruments."
"Oh, let me get up, Dick!"
"Until I receive that promise, and an abject apology, it is a case of j'y suis, j'y reste, my child," he responded blandly.
She panted and struggled for a moment or two, then she gasped:
"I—I promise!"
"On your word of honor?"
"Yes, yes! Dick, you are breaking my ribs or something."
"Corset, perhaps," he suggested. "And the apology? A verbal one will suffice on this occasion, accompanied by the sum of one shilling for the purchase of cigarettes."
"I shan't! You never said a word about a shilling!"
"I did not—I hadn't time; but I shall now have time to make it two."
The door opened, and a servant with a moon-shaped face and prominent eyes looked in. She did not seem at all surprised at the state of affairs—did not even smile.
"The butcher's man says shall he wait any longer, miss?"
"Yes, tell him to wait, Molly," said the boy. "Miss Nell is tired, and is lying down for a little while; resting, you know."
"I—I promise! I apologize! You—you shall have the shilling!" gasped the girl, half angrily, half haughtily.
He rose in a leisurely fashion, got back to his window seat, and held out his long, shapely hand.
She shook herself, put up one hand to her hair, and took a shilling from her pocket with the other.
"Tiresome boy!" she exclaimed. "If I live to be a hundred, I shall never know why boys were invented."
"There are lots of other things, simpler things, that you will never know, though you live to be a Methuselah, my dear Nell," he said; "one of them being that twenty-seven and eight do not make thirty-nine."
"Thirty-nine? Why, of course not; thirty-five!" she retorted. "That's where I was wrong. Dick, you are a beast. There's the book, Molly, and there's the money——Oh, give me back that shilling, Dick; I want it! I've only just got enough. Give it me back at once; you shall have it again, I swear—I mean, I promise."
"Simple child!" he murmured sweetly. "So young, so simple! She really thinks I shall give it to her! Such innocence is indeed touching! Excuse these tears. It will soon pass!"
He mopped his eyes with his handkerchief, as if overcome by emotion, and the exasperated Nell looked at him as if she meant another fight; but she resisted the temptation, and, with a shrug of her shoulders, pushed the book and money toward the patient and unmoved Molly.
"There you are, Molly, all but the shilling. Tell him to add that to the next account."
"Yes, miss. And the missis' chocklut; it's just the time?"
Nell glanced at the clock.
"So it is! There'll be a row. It's all your fault, Dick. Why don't you go for a sail, or shrimping, or something? A boy's always a nuisance in the house. I'll come at once, Molly. There!" she exclaimed, as a woman's thin voice was heard calling in a languid and injured tone:
"Molly!"
"'Twas the voice of the sluggard——'" Dick began to quote; but Nell, with a hissed "Hush! she'll hear you!" ran out, struggling with her laughter. Five minutes later, she went up the stairs with a salver on which were a dainty chocolate service and a plate of thin bread and butter, and entering the best bedroom of the cottage, carried the salver to a faded-looking woman who, in a short dressing jacket of dingy pink, sat up in the bed.
She was Mrs. Lorton, the stepmother of the boy and girl. She had been pretty once, and had not forgotten the fact—it is on the cards that she thought herself pretty still, though the weak face was thin and hollow, the once bright eyes dim and querulous, the lips drawn into a dissatisfied curve.
"Here is your chocolate, mamma," said the girl. She hated the word "mamma"; but from the first moment of her introduction to Mrs. Lorton, she had declined to call her by the sacred name of "mother." "I'm afraid I'm late."
"It is ten minutes past the time," said Mrs. Lorton; "but I do not complain. I never complain, Eleanor. A Wolfer should at least know how to suffer in silence. I hope it is hot—really hot; yesterday it was cold—quite cold, and it caused me that acute indigestion which, I trust, Eleanor, it will never be your lot to experience."
"I'm sorry, mamma; but yesterday morning you were asleep when I brought it in, and I did not like to wake you."
"Not asleep, Eleanor," said Mrs. Lorton, with an air of long-suffering patience—"no, alas! not asleep. My eyes were closed, I have no doubt; but I was merely thinking. I heard you come in——Surely that is not all the cream! I have few fancies, Heaven knows; but I have always been accustomed to half cream and half chocolate, and an invalid suffers acutely from these deprivations, slight and trifling though they may appear to one in your robust, I had almost said savage state of health."
"Isn't there as much as usual? I will go and see if there is some more," said the girl, deftly arranging the tray. "See, it is quite hot this morning."
"But it will be cold before you return, doubtless," sighed Mrs. Lorton, with saintly resignation. "And, Eleanor, may I venture to ask you not to renew the terrible noise with which you have been filling the house for the last half hour. You know how I dislike crushing the exuberance of your animal spirits; but such a perfectly barbaric noise tortures my poor overstrained nerves."
"Yes, mamma. We'll—I'll be quiet."
"Thank you. It is a great deal to ask. I am aware that you think me exacting. This butter is anything but fresh."
"It was made this morning."
"Please, oh, please do not contradict me, Eleanor! If there is one characteristic more plainly developed in me than another it is my unerring taste. This butter is not fresh. But do not mind. I am not complaining. Do not think that. I merely passed the remark. And if you are really going to get me my usual quantity of cream, will you do so now? Cold chocolate two mornings in succession would try my digestion sadly."
The girl left the room quickly, and as she passed the dining-room door she looked in to say hurriedly:
"Dry up, Dick. Mamma's been complaining of the noise."
"'Eleanor, I never complain,'" he murmured; but he put down the banjo, rose and stretched himself, and left the room, pretending to slip as he passed Nell in the passage, and flattening her against the wall.
She gave him a noiseless push and went for the remainder of the cream.
Mrs. Lorton received it with a sigh and a patient "I thank you, Eleanor;" and while she sipped the chocolate, and snipped at the bread and butter—she ate the latter as if it were a peculiarly distasteful medicine in the solid—the girl tidied the room. It was the only really well-furnished room in the cottage; Nell's little chamber in the roof was as plain as Marguerite's in "Faust," and Dick's was Spartan in its Character; but a Wolfer—Mrs. Lorton was a distant, a very distant connection by a remote marriage of the noble family of that name—cannot live without a certain amount of luxury, and, as there was not enough to go round, Mrs. Lorton got it all. So, though Nell's little bed was devoid of curtains,