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She had indeed long been of age, but of course her suitor could not but look to her former guardian for consent and influence. He was a very bearded man, pleasant-spoken and gentlemanlike, and Lancelot had prepared his brother by saying that he knew all about the family, and they were highly respectable solicitors at Minsterham, one son a master in the school at Stoneborough.
So Fulbert's farewells were made in the utmost haste, and mixed up with Wilmet's solicitous directions for his proper use of all her preparations for his comfort on the voyage; and Lance could only be seen for the brief moments of halt at the Minsterham Station, during which neither spoke three words, but Lance hung on the step till the train was in motion, and then was snatched back, and well shaken and reprimanded, by a guard; while Fulbert leant out after him at even greater peril of his life, long after the last wave of the trencher cap had ceased to be visible.
Now his strongest aptitude never was for classical work; and if he is not to touch a Latin book till Christmas, and then only cautiously, I do not see what chance he would have, even if Will were out of the way. 'And if not at Minsterham, so much the less anywhere else, said Wilmet. 'Besides, it might be a dreadful risk if his head were to be overstrained.
'And the rest? 'One has the Ewshire Scholarship at St. Cadoc's; and there's one in Australia. 'And this lad what's his name? 'Lancelot. He is in the choir school at Minsterham Cathedral, and hopes to get a scholarship. 'Is that all of you? 'Two more boys, quite little, and the six girls. 'Any of them able to do anything for themselves?
Yet the days would have been long to any but lovers, in spite of the rides and walks, one even to Minsterham to see Lance. Ferdinand liked to recur to the old remembrances of his convalescence; but in these Alda had no part, and they seemed to jar on her.
He also understood what the inured ears of the family never guessed, since Lance never complained, the distress of Theodore's constant hum and concertina to sensitive ears and excited nerves; and had observed that Lance had flagged ever since the journey to Minsterham, with less of vigour and more of sharpness.
'And Felix at croquet! 'Alice is teaching him. You never did see such a joke as old Blunderbore screwing up his eyes at the balls, and making at them with his mallet like a sledge-hammer. He and Alice and Robin and that Bisset curate are playing against Bill, two of the girls, and Shapcote Bexley against Minsterham, and little Bobbie's a real out- and-outer.
At any rate it dissipated the emotional tone of the party; and by and by, when Bernard and Angela had agreed to make a bicycle rush to Minsterham the next day, "that is," said Angela "if Lena is happy enough to spare me," the Harewoods took leave.
It appeared there had been little but the instrumental music that evening, and strangers who had heard the praises of the Minsterham choir must have been disappointed; for the psalms so entirely overcame the senior chorister that he could do nothing but sob, and at last was fain to stuff half the sleeve of his surplice into his mouth to hinder a howl such as the least of the boys actually burst out with.
Did you ever know of anybody really and truly? Lance meditated, but his experience reached no farther than the surgeon's assistant at Minsterham, who was reported to be continually in love, but who did not look greatly the worse for it. And then Robina suggested that she did not remember that either Wilfred or Ophelia had a cough. 'But my father had, said Lance in the depths of his throat.
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