'Harriet has lost Fido,' said Elizabeth.
Here Rupert came to meet them, and no more was said on the subject.
Rupert obeyed his sister tolerably well during most of the day, though he was sorely tempted to ask Elizabeth to send Anne an abstract, in short-hand, of the lecture on Personal Respectability; but he refrained, for he was really fond of his cousin, and very good-natured, excepting when his vanity was offended.
Anne however was in a continual fright, for he delighted in tormenting her by going as near the dangerous subject as he dared; and often, when no one else thought there was any danger, she knew by the expression of his eye that he had some spiteful allusion on his lips. Besides, he thought some of the speeches he had made in the morning too clever to be wasted on his mother and sister, when his cousins were there to hear them, and Anne could not trust to his forbearance to keep them to himself all day, so that she kept a strict watch upon him.
In the evening, however, Mr. Woodbourne called her and Helen to play some Psalm tunes from which he wanted to choose some for the Church. He spoke to her in a way which made her hope that he did not think her quite foolish, but she would have been glad to stay and keep Rupert in order. However, she was rejoiced to hear Elizabeth propose to him to play at chess, and she saw them sit down very amicably.
This proposal, however, proved rather unfortunate, for Elizabeth was victorious in the first battle, the second was a drawn game, and Rupert lost the third, just as he thought he was winning it, from forgetting to move out the castle's pawn after castling his king. He could not bear to be conquered, and pushed away the chess-board rather pettishly.
'Good morning to you, Prince Rupert,' said Elizabeth triumphantly; 'do you wish for any more?'
Rupert made no answer, but pulled the inkstand across the table, opened the paper-case, and took up a pen.
'Oh!' said Elizabeth, 'I suppose we may expect a treatise on the art of fortification, salient angles, and covered ways, not forgetting the surrender of Bristol.'
No reply, but Rupert scratched away very diligently with his pen, the inkstand preventing Elizabeth from seeing what he was about.
'Anne,' said Elizabeth, leaning back, and turning round, 'I am thinking of making a collection of the heroes who could not bear to be beaten at chess, beginning with Charlemagne's Paladins, who regularly beat out each other's brains with the silver chess-board, then the Black Prince, and Philippe of Burgundy. Can you help me to any more?'
Anne did not hear, and Rupert remained silent as ever; and Elizabeth, determining to let him make himself as silly as he pleased, took up her work and sewed on her braid very composedly. Katherine had come down again at dinner-time, and was working in silence. She had been standing by the piano, but finding that no one asked her to play, or took any notice of her, she had come back to the table.
'Dear me, Prince Rupert,' said she, looking over his shoulder, 'what strange thing are you doing there?'
'A slight sketch,' said he, 'to be placed in Lizzie's album as a companion to a certain paragraph which I believe she has studied.'
Rupert threw his pen-and-ink drawing down before Elizabeth. It was really not badly done, and she saw in a moment, by the help of the names which he had scribbled below in his worst of all bad writing, that it represented the Giants, Pope and Pagan, as described in the Pilgrim's Progress, while, close to Pope, was placed a delineation very like Don Quixote, purporting to be the superannuated Giant Chivalry, biting his nails at a dapper little personification of
'Civil and Religious Liberty.' A figure whose pointed head, lame foot, and stout walking-stick, shewed him to be intended for Sir Walter Scott, was throwing over him an embroidered surcoat, which a most striking and ludicrous likeness of Mr.
Augustus Mills was pulling off at the other end; and the scene was embellished by a ruined castle in the distance, and a quantity of skulls and cross- bones in the fore-ground. Elizabeth could not but think it unkind of him to jest on this matter, while her eye-lids were still burning and heavy from the tears it had caused her to shed; but she knew Rupert well enough to be certain that it was only a sign that he was out of temper, and had not yet conquered his old boyish love of teazing.
She put the paper into her basket, saying, in a low tone, 'Thank you, Rupert; I shall keep it as a memorial of several things, some of which may do me good; but I fear it will always put me in mind that cavaliers of the present day would have little objection to such battles as I was speaking of, even with women, if this poor old gentleman did not retain a small degree of vitality.'
Rupert was vexed, both at being set down in a way he did not expect, and because he was really sorry that his wounded self-conceit bad led him to do what he saw had mortified Elizabeth more than he had intended.
'What is it? what is it?' asked Katherine.
'Never mind, Kate,' said Rupert.
'Well, but what fun is it?' persisted Katherine.
'Only downright nonsense,' said Rupert, looking down, and unconsciously drawing very strange devices on the blotting paper, 'unworthy the attention of so wise a lady.'
'Only the dry bones of an ill- natured joke,' said Lady Merton, who had seen all that passed, from the other end of the table. She spoke so low as only to be heard by her son; but Elizabeth saw his colour deepen, and, as he rose and went to the piano, she felt sorry for him, and soon found an opportunity of reminding him that he had promised to draw something for Edward's scrap-book, and asked him if he would do so now.
'Willingly,' said Rupert, 'but only on one condition, Lizzie.'
'What?' said Elizabeth.
'That you give me back that foolish thing,' said Rupert, fixing his eyes intently on the coach and horses which he was drawing.
'There it is,' said Elizabeth, restoring it to him. 'No, no, Rupert, do not tear it up, it is the cleverest thing you ever drew, Sir Walter is excellent.'
Yet, in spite of this commendation, Rupert had torn his performance into the smallest scraps, before his sister came back to the table.
