Part 3 (2/2)

”Hallo, Min!” Exclaimed Charlie, the eldest of her brothers, a young man of about twenty-two. ”Aren't you ashamed of yourself, rus.h.i.+ng off directly breakfast's over and leaving your poor unhappy enc.u.mbrances of brothers to amuse themselves as best they can during the long hours of a Sat.u.r.day morning. Here are Ned and I, who only get a peep of home once a week, and even on that occasion we seldom get half a peep of you.

Confess now, isn't it too bad?”

”Bad!” put in Ned, before she could speak, ”It's villainous. Here am I, shut up in a dingy office all week and every day of the week, with nothing more amusing than that highly respectable old humbug, Blackstone, to lighten the weary moments, and when I come home it isn't a bit better.”

”Oh, you two poor, neglected beings!” Cried Minnie, laughing heartlessly at their rueful faces, ”What would you like me to do for your amus.e.m.e.nt?

Read goody stories to you, or play at wild beasts?--Which?”

”Why, you're just as heartless as any other girl could possibly be,”

a.s.serted Ned.

”And haven't I quite as good a right?” enquired Minnie saucily. ”Pray, tell me why shouldn't I be?”

”Oh, as to that, you may be just as heartless as you please to other fellows--the more so the better, _I_ should say--but you might have a little consideration for the feeling of your brothers,” replied Ned, calling up a look of tragic gloom, delightful to behold.

”I say,” interrupted Archie at this juncture, ”I'm ferociously hungry.

Do let's see about having something to eat. In my opinion, the best way to amuse one's self under the present circ.u.mstances, and to lay the foundation of an imperturbable temper, is to satisfy the cravings of the inner man.”

”Well spoken!” approved Charlie, patting him on the head, ”you're a sound philosopher, my boy, and deserve every honour.”

”''Tis not for praise, my voice I raise,'” sang Charlie, ”I speak only in the interests of common sense, and common necessity,” he continued in a sepulchral voice, ”and I rather think Pope had the same interests at heart when he represented justice weighing solid pudding against empty praise.”

They all laughed at the extreme literalness of Archie's interpretation, which Charlie declared would probably have afforded the great poet himself unbounded satisfaction. By this time they had made the transition from the parlour to the dining-room, where, on the table just by Minnie's plate lay a letter, directed in a peculiar yet beautiful form of writing. Ned, in pa.s.sing, was arrested by it, and lifted it the better to observe its beauty.

”Look here!” he exclaimed, ”what peculiar writing--I never saw anything like this before. Did you, Charlie?”

Charlie, thus appealed to, came round to see, and started slightly when his eyes fell upon it, but quickly recovering himself, he glanced at it indifferently, and remarked that it was very pretty in a careless tone, which yet had in it an uneasy ring.

”Whose writing is it?” asked Ned, bluntly, as Minnie at last obtained possession of it after it had been criticized and admired by all in turn, with the exception of Charlie, who stood somewhat aloof, humming a tune with a strained a.s.sumption of carelessness, which was only noticed by Seymour, the only member of the family who had been silent during the conversation.

”O, it's a girl in our school--Mona Cameron--a deadly enemy of mine,”

said Minnie with a laugh as she made the last a.s.sertion, ”Some of the girls call her 'Soda' and me 'Magnesia,' because we always create a 'phiz' when we come into contact.”

She opened the letter carelessly and found it to contain, as she had expected it would, some information relative to an examination for which they were both working. She put the note in her pocket when she had read it, but left the envelope on the table.

Nothing more was said on the subject, but when Minnie came into the dining-room about half-an-hour afterward for something she had left there, she found Charlie standing by the window with the envelope in his hand, gazing at it with a look that was more than merely critical. He put it down hastily as she entered, and remembering his former indifference, she enquired laughingly if he was trying to discover the writer's character from her caligraphy. He laughed too, but it was not a mirthful laugh, and soon after, went out; Minnie observed, however, that the envelope no longer lay where he had laid it, and turned back to look for it, thinking it must have fallen, but it was not to be found.

”Charlie must have taken it with him,” she thought. ”Is it possible that he has fallen in love with Mona's writing without knowing Mona herself.

Well, when one thinks of it, Mona's writing is almost Mona's self, and any one who would be likely to fall in love with it would be almost likely to fall in love with her. She is just as beautiful and delicate and sharp,” she continued to herself, taking out Mona's note and looking at it attentively, ”and just the same something about both that repels one and produces an uncomfortable sensation without any visible cause.”

She put back the note in a hurry, remembering how much she had to do, and soon forgot the circ.u.mstance among the mult.i.tude of other matters which immediately claimed her attention.

She found her time fully occupied till shortly before four o'clock, and had a pretty exciting scramble to be at Hollowmell at the time appointed.

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