'My good industrious boy.'
Sir Jasper, in his grand and gracious manner, turned to his sister- in-law, saying-
'We could not but come first to you, Jane, for it is to you that he is indebted, as we all are, primarily for his success.'
'That is the greatest compliment I ever had, Jasper,' she answered, smiling but almost tearful, and laughing it off. 'I feel ready to mount yonder elephant lady's triumphal car.'
The General refrained from any more teasing of Fergus on his first impression; and at seven that evening the younger Merrifield boys with their uncle, and the two from St. Andrew's Rock with Lance, set off in high spirits.
They re-appeared much sooner than they were expected at Beechcroft Cottage, where the Underwoods were spending the long twilight evening.
'A low concern!' was the General's verdict.
'We fled simultaneously from the concluding ballet,' said Lance. 'There had been quite as much as we could bear for ingenuous youth.'
'We stood the Sepoy's Death Song,' said the General, 'but the poster of the Bleeding Bride was enough for us.'
'They had only one elephant!' cried Adrian.
'A regular swindle,' said Wilfred.
'No lions!' added Fely, 'nothing to see but that poor old elephant! I wish he would have turned round and spouted water at them, as that one did to the tailor.'
'Water would be uncommonly good for them,' said the General, laughing, 'they are not much acquainted therewith.'
'And such an atmosphere!' said Lance.
'I see it on your forehead, poor boy,' said Geraldine.
'I should like to set on the Society against cruelty to animals,' said the General; 'I saw galls on the horses' necks, and they were all half starved.'
'Then to see the poor old elephant pretend to be drunk!' added Fergus, 'stagger about, and led off by the policeman, drunk and disorderly!'
'Was that being drunk?' asked Adrian, with wide-open eyes. 'It was like Campbell that day.' Everybody laughed.
Wilfred did so now.
'You green kid, you.'
'Happy verdure,' said the General, 'to be unaware that some people can laugh when they ought to weep.'
'Weep!' exclaimed Wilfred, 'every time one sees a fellow screwy in the street.'
'Perhaps the angels do,' murmured Clement.
'Come, Master Wilfred, you have expressed your opinions sufficiently to-night,' said the General. 'Suppose you and Fergus walk home together. A nasty low place as ever I saw. I have a mind to tell the Mayor about it.'
Gerald said-
'Is not that making yourself very unpopular?'
'That is no great matter,' said the General, rather surprised.
'I should have thought it better to refine the people's tastes than to thwart their present ones.'
'The improper must be stopped before the taste for the proper can be promoted,' said Clement.
'With all the opposition and ill-blood that you cause?' said Gerald. 'Why, if I were an errand-boy, the suppression would send me direct to the circus. Would it not do the same by you, Uncle Lance?'
'Discouragement might, prohibition would prevent wholly, and I should be thankful,' said Lance.
'Ah! you are of the old loyal nature,' said Gerald. 'You of the old school can never see things by modern lights.'
'I am thankful to say-not,' responded Reginald Mohun, in a tone that made some laugh, and Gerald sigh in Anna's ear-
'Happy those who see only one side of a question.'
There was another great day for the boys, namely, the speech or closing day at the school, when Fergus was the undoubted hero, and was so exalted that his parents thought it would be very bad for him, and were chiefly consoled by his strong and genuine dislike to having to declaim with Clement Varley the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius. He insisted on always calling the former 'Old Brute,' and all the efforts of mother and aunt never got him beyond the dogged repetition of a lesson learnt by heart, whereas little Varley threw himself into the part with spirit that gained all the applause. Fergus carried off a pile of prizes too, but despised them. 'Stupid old poetry!' said he, 'what should I do with that? Do let me change it, father, for the Handbook of Paleontology, or something worth having.'
Adrian had three prizes too, filling Anna with infinite delight. He was not to go home immediately on the break-up of the school, but was to wait for his sisters, who were coming in a few days more with Lady Travis Underwood to the bazaar and masque, so that he would go home with them.
Neither the prospect nor the company of little Fely greatly reconciled him to the delay, but his mother could not believe that her darling could travel alone, and his only satisfaction was in helping Fergus to arrange his spare specimens for sale.
CHAPTER XVII. EXCLUDED
But I needn't tell you what to do, only do it out of hand, And charge whatever you like to charge, my lady won't make a stand. -T. HOOD.
The ladies' committee could not but meet over and over again, wandering about the gardens, which were now trimmed into order, to place the stalls and decide on what should and should not be.
There was to be an art stall, over which Mrs. Henderson was to preside. Here were to be the very graceful and beautiful articles of sculpture and Italian bijouterie that the Whites had sent home, and that were spared from the marble works; also Mrs. Grinstead's drawings, Captain Henderson's, those of others, screens and scrap- books and photographs. Jasper and a coadjutor or two undertook to photograph any one who wished it; and there too were displayed the Mouse-traps. Mrs. Henderson, sure to look beautiful, quite Madonna- like in her costume, would have the charge of the stall, with Gillian and two other girls, in Italian peasant-dresses, sent home by Aunt Ada.
Gillian was resolved on standing by her. 'Kalliope wants some one to give her courage,' she said. 'Besides, I am the mother of the Mouse- trap, and I must see how it goes off.'
Lady Flight and a bevy of young ladies of her selection were to preside over the flowers; Mrs. Yarley undertook the refreshments; Lady Merrifield the more ordinary bazaar stall. Her name was prized, and Anna was glad to shelter herself under her wing. The care of Valetta and Primrose, to say nothing of Dolores, was enough inducement to overcome any reluctance, and she was glad to be on the committee when vexed questions came on, such as Miss Pettifer's offer of a skirt-dance, which could not be so summarily dismissed as it had been at Beechcroft, for Lady Flight and Mrs. Varley wished for it, and even Mrs. Harper was ready to endure anything to raise the much- needed money, and almost thought Lady Merrifield too particular when she discontinued the dancing-class for Valetta and Primrose.
'That speaks for itself,' said Mrs. Grinstead.
'I can fancy seeing no harm in it for little girls,' said Lady Merrifield, 'but I don't like giving them a talent the use of which seems to be to enable them to show off.'
'And I know that Lady Rotherwood would not approve,' said Miss Mohun, aware that this settled the matter. 'And here's another outsider, Miss Penfeather, who offers to interpret handwriting at two-and- sixpence a head.'
'By all means,' was the cry. 'We will build her a bower somewhere near the photography.'
'I am only afraid,' added Jane, 'of her offering to do palmistry. Do you know, I dabbled a little in that once, and I came to the conclusion that it was not a safe study for oneself or any one else.'
'Quite right,' said Geraldine.
'Do you believe in it then?'
'Not so as to practise it, or accept it so far as the future is concerned, and to play at it as a parody of fortune-
