Bexley, where her sisters were greatly edified by her sketch-book, a perfect journal in clever scenes and groups, like the 'Voyage en zig-zag.' Two of the gentlemen seemed always in waiting on the graceful outline that did duty for Alda; and indeed, she gave Wilmet to understand that only the skill that played them off one against the other had averted an offer from each, hundreds of miles from home, when it would have been so very inconvenient! Every morning Wilmet considered how her dinner would appear if one or both should suddenly drop in to pursue his courtship.
Even Felix, though he had pooh-poohed the mysterious whisper from his sisters, was startled at the apparition of a picturesque figure; in Tyrolese hat, green knickerbockers, belt, knapsack, loose velvet coat, and fair moustache, marching full into the shop; and while the customers who were making it a rendezvous gazed in doubt between gamekeepers and stage banditti, holding out a hand too fair and dainty for either character, and exclaiming, 'How are you, Mr. Froggatt! Hollo, Felix!'
Mr. Froggatt was amazed beyond measure, and it was only on hearing the ring of the mirthful laugh that he exclaimed, 'Mr. Edgar This is an alteration. You will find the young ladies up-stairs.'
Felix was disengaged at the moment, and could take him through the parlour, too glad to have him there at all to utter the faintest wish that he would have rung at the private door; and he ushered him into the drawing-room with the words, 'Here's the artist who has begun with himself;' and then retreated.
'Edgar! oh, you wonderful boy!' cried happy Geraldine, as he threw his arms round her; while Alda asked: 'Is that the thing now, Edgar?'
'Quite comifo,' he answered. 'Ha, little ones, have you forgotten me?'
'Stella says you're the clarionet in the brass band,' said Bernard. 'What have you got in that pack?'
'Munitions of war!' he answered, unstrapping his bag, and producing packets of French bon-bons, bought on his way home, from the sketching tour Mr. Renville always made with sundry of his pupils in early autumn. 'Gobble them up, little mice, before the cat comes home.'
Stella paused with a dutiful 'May I?' and Cherry had to interfere between the little maiden's scruples, Bernard's omnivorous inclination, and Theodore's terror at any new article of food; while Alda and Edgar exchanged eager question and answer:
'You've been at home. You've seen them all?'
'I dined there on Sunday-might do so any day; they can't do without me, that's a fact.'
'Nor me, I imagine,' said Alda. 'I suppose I am to go back with you?'
'So Madam proposed; but the fact is, that Molly has done uncommonly well without you this time.'
'What do you mean ?' asked Alda, sharply.
'What think you of a friend of Cherry?'
'I haven't got any friends.'
'Think again! Not the great convert, the Cacique of all the Mexicos?'
'Ferdinand Travis! You don't mean it?'
'
'Do tell me! I can't understand,' cried Alda, much excited. 'We have never met him.'
'The uncle or father-which?
'The uncle.'
'Well, the uncle has been in England, and fraternised with our governor at Peter Brown's; there was a banqueting all round, and his nephew was carried at his chariot wheels. If I am not much mistaken, gold and timber jingled to silver and bullock-hide, and concluded a prospective union in the persons of my nephew and my daughter. I'm sorry. I have long been persuaded that a very small effort on the part of our respected Blunderbore might have redeemed the family fortunes in the person of Polly.'
'How could you think of anything so absurd?' said Alda.
'As if my uncle would consent!'
'If Tom has any sentiment, it is for my father and the name of Underwood,' said Edgar. 'You remember he was sorely disappointed that Felix would not step into my shoes.'
'And very angry and hurt,' said Alda, 'as well he might be.'
'Yes; but that anger proved the vastness of his good intentions. Besides there's something about our old giant-steadiness and breeding, I believe-that uniformly makes Tom knock under to him; and there's a peculiar affinity of good sense between him and Marilda, that ought to have ripened under favourable circumstances.'
'And is he really cut out!' said Alda. 'I don't know how to believe this! How far has it gone?'
'Hanger on and oyster in love,' promptly answered Edgar.
'Honest Polly has the most comical look of anxious coyness on her jolly face, and holds her elbows squarer than ever; and a few paces off stands Montezuma, magnificent and melancholic; and Edgar assumed the posture.
'Melancholy, no wonder,' said the conscious beauty; 'Edgar he must be over head and ears in debt.'
'So it struck me; but he must have managed it uncommon quietly, for they call him the Mexican Muff, he's hand and glove with all their holinesses up at Clement's shop, and the wildest orgie he has been detected at was their magic-lantern.'
'Then it is real goodness that draws them together!' exclaimed Cherry, looking up from her presidency over the comfits.
'Goodness and a balance,' said Edgar.
'Did you know,' said Cherry, 'that as soon as he came of age, he paid the Insurance all the money for the Fortinbras Arms? The agents were quite overwhelmed, and wanted to put it in the Pursuivant.'
She was cut short by the return of Wilmet and Angela, accompanied by Miss Knevett. The effect of Edgar's appearance was startling. Alice gave a little scream of surprise, Angela crept behind her sisters, and Wilmet stood for a moment like a stag at gaze; then, as he said, 'Well, Mettie, are you going to send for the police?' exclaimed, 'You, Edgar! What a figure you have made of yourself!'
'See how our eldest crushes me!' said Edgar. 'Such a face as yours, Mettie, ought not to be wedded to the commonplace.'
'I suppose it is like German artists,' said Wilmet, trying to resign herself.
'It is such a beautiful becoming dress,' whispered Alice to Geraldine; while Edgar rattled on-'No wonder there is a deterioration in taste from living in the very tents of the Philistines. Why, Cherry, how do you bear existence surrounded by such colours as these?'
'The paper?' asked Wilmet, surprised. 'It is rather a large pattern, to be sure.'
'I call it cruelty to animals to shut Cherry up among the eternal abortive efforts of that gilded trellis to close upon those blue dahlias, crimson lilacs, and laburnums growing upwards, tied with huge ragged magenta ribbons. They would wear out my brain.'
'Well, I think when you remember our old paper, you might be thankful!' said Wilmet.
'Precisely what I do, and am not thankful. What our paper may have been in its earlier stages of existence, I am not prepared to say, but since I can remember, that hateful thing, the pattern, could only be traced by curious researches in dark corners, and the wall presented every nuance of purplish salmon or warm apricot.'
'Dear old paper!' cried Cherry. 'Yes, wasn't it soft, deepening off in clouds and bars, sunsets and storm-clouds, to make stories about?'
'Where it was most faded and grimy,' said Wilmet. 'It is all affectation not to be glad to have clean walls.'
'Clean!' cried Edgar, in horror. 'Defend me from the clean! Bare, bald, and frigid, with hard lines breaking up and frittering your background. If walls are ornamented at all, it should not be in a poor material like paper, but rich silk or woollen tapestry hangings.'
'We couldn't have tapestry now,' said Alice, in a puzzled voice.
'Then, ''Comrades, take warning by my fall,
And have it strong or not at all.''
'Not walls,' laughed Cherry.
'Let them be of natural, or, at any rate, uniform tint; and cover them with your own designs of some character and purpose, not patterns bought by the yard.'
'Oh! I see what you would be at,' said Wilmet quaintly.
'You are bewailing the loss of your great Man Friday.'
'Achilles, I beg your pardon.'
'He never would come out,' said Angela; 'he came through the whitewash after the measles.'
