Part 2 (2/2)

The rector was a dignified-looking man, with a tall figure, handsome features, and hair and beard which had of late been growing very grey.

He greeted Dalton cordially, and at once began to speak of his hopes and expectations for his son. To all of these Dalton responded good-humoredly. ”Sydney has plenty of brains: he is is sure to do well,”

he said.

”Oh, I don't know--I don't know. I've been his only tutor, and I may not have laid the foundations with sufficient care. I shall not be at all surprised if he fails. Indeed”--with a transparent affectation of indifference--”I shall not be sorry to have him back for another year.

He is not quite eighteen, you know. And Lettice will be glad to have him again.”

”But I want him to succeed!” said Lettice eagerly.

”Of course you do. And he _will_ succeed,” said Brooke; an a.s.surance which caused her to flash a glad look of grat.i.tude to him in reply.

”Lettice has been Sydney's companion in his studies,” said Mr. Campion, patting her hand gently with his long white fingers. ”She has been very industrious and has got on very well, but I daresay she will be pleased to have a holiday when he is gone.”

”Yes, I daresay,” said Brooke; and then, looking at Lettice, he saw the manifestation of some strong feeling which he did not understand. The girl flushed hotly and withdrew her hand from her father's arm. The tears suddenly came into her eyes.

”I never wanted a holiday,” she said, in a hurt tone.

”No, no, you were always a good girl,” returned her father absently--his eyes had wandered away from her to the high-road beyond the glebe. ”But of course there is a limit to a girl's powers; she can't compete with a boy beyond a certain point. Is not that a cab, Lettice? Surely it must be Sydney, and he has came at last. Well, now we shall know the result!”

”I'll go to the fence and look,” said Lettice, running away. The tears of mortification and distress were still smarting in her eyes. Why should her father depreciate her to their neighbor because she was a girl? She did not mind Mr. Dalton's opinion of her, but it was hard that her father should give her no credit for the work that she had done in the study at his side. Step by step she had kept pace with her brother: sometimes he had excelled her, sometimes she thought that she was outstripping him. Now in the hour of his possible success (of which she would be proud and glad), why should her father seem to undervalue her powers and her industry? They would never bring her the guerdon that might fall to Sydney's lot; but she felt that she, too, had a right to her father's praise.

She had been vaguely hurt during Sydney's absence to find that Mr.

Campion did not seem disposed to allow her to go on working alone with him. ”Wait, my dear, wait,” he had said to her, when she came to him as usual, ”let us see how Sydney's examination turns out. If he comes back to us for another year you can go on with him. If not--well, you are a girl, it does not matter so much for _you_; and your mother complains that you do not sit with her sufficiently. Take a holiday just now, we will go on when Sydney comes back.”

But in this, Lettice's first separation from her beloved brother, she had no heart for a holiday. She would have been glad of hard work to take her out of herself. She was anxious, sad, _des[oe]uvree_, and if she had not been taught all her life to look on failure in an examination as something disgraceful, she would have earnestly hoped that Sydney might lose the scholars.h.i.+p for which he was competing.

Brooke Dalton saw that his presence was scarcely desired just then, and took his leave, meditating as he pulled up the river on Lettice's reddened cheeks and pretty tear-filled eyes. ”I suppose she thinks she'll miss her brother when he goes away,” he decided at length, ”and no doubt she will, for a time; but it is just as well--what does a girl want with all that Latin and Greek? It will only serve to make her forget to brush her hair and wear a frock becomingly. Of course she's clever, but I should not care for that sort of cleverness in a sister--or a wife.” He thought again of the girl's soft grey eyes. But he had a hundred other preoccupations, and her image very soon faded from his brain.

Lettice ran to the fence to look at the cab, but Mr. Campion turned at once to the gateway and walked out into the road. He had not been mistaken, it was Sydney, indeed; and as soon as the young fellow saw his father he stopped the vehicle, told the driver to go on to the Rectory with his portmanteau, and turned to his father with a triumphant smile.

Lettice did not meet the pair for a minute or two, so the son's communication was made first to Mr. Campion alone.

”Here I am, sir!” was the young man's greeting, ”turned up again like a bad half-penny.”

”Welcome anyhow, my boy,” said the rector, ”and sterling coin, I'll warrant, however much you may malign yourself.” He was too nervous to ask a direct question about his son's success. ”We have been very dull without you. Lettice is counting on your help to break in her pony to the saddle.”

”You mustn't be dull after a week's absence. What would you do if I had to be more than half the year at Cambridge?”

”Ah, that would be a different thing. Have they given you an exhibition then?”

”Well, not exactly that.” The rector's face fell, but it brightened as Sydney proceeded with a touch of youthful pomposity. ”Your old pupil is a Scholar of Trinity.”

The rector was carrying his cane as he walked along, and when Sydney had told his good news he stopped short, his face aglow, and for lack of any more eloquent mode of expressing his satisfaction, raised it in the air and brought it down with sounding emphasis on his companion's back.

Sydney laughed.

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