Part 29 (2/2)

She looked at him in alarm.

He put his finger on a card bearing the words, 'Goodwill to men.'

'Umph,' said she. 'I don't want everything of mine messed and spoilt.'

And as his eye fell on Fergus's cards, he felt there was reason in what she said.

Aunt Lily had taken her for a quarter of an hour that morning, trying to infuse the real thought underlying the joy that makes it Christmas, not only yule-tide. But it all fell flat--it was all lessons to her--imposed on her on a day that she had not been used to see made what she called 'goody.' Last year her father had shut himself up after church, and she had spent the evening in noisy mirth with the Seftons.

CHAPTER XIII. -- AN EGYPTIAN SPHYNX

Aunt Adeline was afraid of winter journeys as well as of the tumultuous festivities of Silverton; so at twelve o'clock. Colonel Mohun drove the pony-carriage to meet the little trim Brownie who stepped out of the station, the porter carrying behind her a huge thing, long, and swathed in brown paper. 'It is quite light; it won't hurt,' she said, 'It must go with us. Put your legs across it, Regie. That's right.'

'Then what becomes of yours?'

'Mine can go anywhere,' said Miss Mohun, crumpling herself up in some mysterious manner under the fur rug, while they drove off, her luggage sticking far off on either side of the splashboard.

'What, in the name of wonder, are you smuggling in there?'

'If you must know, it is the body of a mummy over whose dissection you will have to a.s.sist.'

'Ah! Rotherwood is coming.'

'Rotherwood!'

'And his little girl. Just like him. Lily gets a note this morning from London, telling her to telegraph if she can't have them by the 5.20 train. I've just been ordering a fly. It seems that Lady Rotherwood, going to meet Ivinghoe at the station, coming from school, found he had measles coming out! So they packed off his sister to Beechcroft without having seen him, and thence Rotherwood took her to London.'

'And is having a fine frolic with her, no doubt; but he might as well have given Lily more notice, considering that a marquess or two makes more difference to her household than it does to his.'

'Oh! she is glad enough, only in some trepidation as to how Mrs.

Halfpenny may receive the unspecified maid that the child may bring.'

'How jolly we shall be! I wish Ada had come.'

'I tried to drag her out, but it gets harder and harder to shake her up.

You must come back with me and see her.'

'I say, Jane, have you seen Maurice's child lately?'

'Not very. She wouldn't come with the others last week.'

'What do you think about her? I thought leaving her with Lily would have been the making of her. Indeed, I told Maurice there could not be a better brought up set anywhere than the Merrifields, and that Lily would mother her like one of her own; and now I find her moping about, looking regularly down in the mouth. I got hold of her one day and tried to find out what was the matter, but she only said she would not complain. Can they bully her?'

'I'll tell you what, Maurice, Lily is a great deal too kind to her. She has a kind of temper that won't let them make friends with her.'

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