Part 2 (1/2)

As they entered, a pale attenuated lad of about seventeen, who was lying back in an easy-chair, with his head supported by a pillow, and a book in his hand, turned to them slightly, and his unnaturally large eyes had in them rather a wondering look, which was succeeded by a smile as the professor strode to his side, and took his long, thin, girlish hand.

”Why, Lawrence, my boy, I did not know you were so ill.”

”Ill? Nonsense, man!” said the lawyer shortly. ”He's not ill. Are you, my lad?”

He shook hands rather roughly as he spoke from the other side of the invalid lad's chair, while Mrs Dunn gave her hands an impatient jerk, and went behind to brush the long dark hair from the boy's forehead.

He turned up his eyes to her to smile his thanks, and then laid his cheek against the hand that had been smoothing his hair.

”No, Mr Burne, I don't think I'm ill,” he said in a low voice. ”I only feel as if I were so terribly weak and tired. I get too tired to read sometimes, and I never do anything at all to make me so.”

”Hah!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lawyer.

”I thought it was the doctor come back,” continued the lad. ”I say, Mr Preston--you are my guardian, you know--is there any need for him to come? I am so tired of cod-liver oil.”

”Yah!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the lawyer; ”it would tire anybody but a lamp.”

He snorted this out, and then blew another blast upon his nose, which made some ornament upon the chimney-piece rattle.

”Doctor?” said the professor rather dreamily, as he sat down beside the patient. ”I suppose he knows best. I did not know you were so ill, my boy.”

”I'm not ill, sir.”

”But they say you are, my lad. I was going abroad; but I heard that you were not so well, and--and I came up.”

”I am very glad,” said the lad, ”for it is very dull lying here. Old Dunny is very good to me, only she will bother me so to take more medicine, and things that she says will do me good, and I do get so tired of everything. How is the book getting on, sir?”

”Oh, very slowly, my lad,” said the professor, with more animation. ”I was going abroad to travel and study the places about which I am writing, but--”

”When do you go?” cried the lad eagerly.

”I was going within a few days, but--”

”Whereto?”

”Smyrna first, and then to the south coast of Asia Minor, and from thence up into the mountains.”

”Is it a beautiful country, Mr Preston?”

”Yes; a very wild and lovely country, I believe.”

”With mountains and valleys and flowers?”

”Oh, yes, a glorious place.”

”And when are you going?”

”I was going within a few days, my boy,” said the professor kindly; ”but--”

”Is it warm and suns.h.i.+ny there, sir?”