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Updated: April 30, 2025
Won't, you come with us?" The proposal was very tempting, the more so as Julian had never been abroad. He mentioned it in his next letter home, and asked if it would be possible for any of them to accompany him, without which he gave up all intention of making the tour. "As for Frankie and me," she continued, "we will stay at home to take care of Ildown in your absence.
While poor De Vayne languished on the bed of sickness, his sufferings were almost the only shadow which chequered the brightness of those weeks at Ildown. In the morning, Julian and Kennedy worked steadily; the afternoon and evening they devoted to amusement and social life.
The Kennedys soon became great favourites among the Ildown people, and went out to many cheery Christmas parties; but they enjoyed more the quiet evenings at home when they all sat and talked after dinner round the dining-room fire, and while the two boys played at chess, and Violet and Eva worked or sketched, Julian and Kennedy would read aloud to them in turns.
Under her hands the rectory garden became a many-coloured Eden, and the eye could rest delightedly on its lawns and flower-beds, even amid that glorious environment of woods and cliffs, free moors and open sea, which gave to the vicinity of Ildown such a nameless charm.
"He shuns me," thought Kennedy, with a sigh, and packing up some books and clothes, he prepared to go home. Of course he was to spend part of the vacation at Ildown. Violet wondered that he did not come at once; she was not exactly jealous of him, but she thought that he might have been more eager for her company than he seemed to be, and she would have liked it better had he come earlier.
Eva, too, was invited, and the brother and sister arrived at Ildown by a late train, and drove to the house. What a glowing welcome they received! Julian introduced them to Mrs Home, and Kennedy kissed affectionately the hand of his future mother.
It was no slight addition to his happiness to sit perpetually with the group of friends he valued most. "I've got a magnificent plan for the Long, Julian," said Kennedy to him one day, as they left the hall. "My father is going to Switzerland for three months, with my sister Eva and me. Eva goes under the wing of an aunt of mine, Mrs Dudley, whom I think you met at Ildown once.
With his mother, his brothers, and Violet, Julian felt the need of no other society, but he corresponded with Kennedy and other college friends, and saw a great deal of Lord De Vayne, who continually rode over to pass the Sunday with them at Ildown, and sometimes persuaded all the Homes to come and spend the day with him and his mother in the beautiful but lonely grounds of Other Hall.
Hazlet's very little and very ignorant mind had been fed into self-complacency by the cheering belief that he and his friends formed a select party whose future welfare was secure, while "the world" was very wicked, and destined to everlasting burning; and in proportion to his gross conceit, was he nettled with the evident manner in which Julian, though without any rudeness, avoided his company even at Ildown, where he reigned with undisputed sway among his own admiring circle of gynaikazia.
Frank and Cyril were at home for their holidays, and the house and garden at Ildown rang all day long with their merry voices and incessant games. Old Christmas observances were not yet obsolete in Ildown, and Yule logs and royal feasts were the order of the day.
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