Misunderstood

"Well, I don't know about dinner," said Sir Everard; "little boys are rather in the way on these occasions, especially those who don't know how to hold their tongues when they ought; but you shall both come down in the library and see them arrive."

At this moment Virginie's unwelcome head appeared at the door, and her unwelcome voice proclaimed, "M. Humphrey, M. Miles, il faut venir vous coucher."

Very unwillingly did they obey, for the conversation had reached a most interesting point, and Humphrey had a hundred and one questions still to put about the aborigines.

They proceeded quietly upstairs, closely followed by Virginie, who always liked to see them well on in front of her, in case they should take it into their heads to do anything very extraordinary on their way.

To-night, however, they were much too full of the wild men of the woods they were to see on Friday to think of anything else, and they arrived in the bed-room nursery, without giving any shocks to Virginie's nervous system.

Indeed, the subject lasted them till they were undressed, and washed, and tucked up in their little beds side by side.

Virginie shut the shutters, and with a sigh of relief retired to supper.

"I'm glad she's gone," said Humphrey, "because now we can have a good talk about the wild men."

"Oh, Humphie!" said little Miles beseechingly, "please don't let us talk of them any more now it's dark; or if you really must, give me your hand to hold, for it does frighten me so."

"Then we won't talk about them," said the elder boy in a soothing tone, as he drew close to the edge of the bed, and threw his arm protectingly round the little one. Miles nestled close up to him, and with their cheeks one against the other, and hands tightly clasped together, they fell asleep.

Poor little curly heads, o'er whom no fond mother shall bend to-night, murmuring soft words of love and blessing! Poor dimpled faces, on whom no lingering kiss shall fall!

Outside in the meadows, the young lambs lay by the ewe's side; up in the trees the wee birds nestled beneath the parent wing, but no light step, no softly rustling gown, no carefully shaded light, disturbed the dreamless slumber of the two little brothers.

CHAPTER II

Sir Everard Duncombe did not make his appearance in the dining-room till nine o'clock, but long before that hour his movements were known to the whole household; for soon after eight, the two little boys were stationed outside his door, and failing to gain admittance, kept account of the progress of his toilette, in tones which were heard all over the house.

"Will you soon be out of your bath, father?… Are you just about soaping?… What are you doing now?… Are you sponging now?… What a splash father is having! He must be drying himself now, he is so very quiet."

Then sounded the unlocking of a door, and the scamper of little feet.

"I must congratulate you on the satisfactory way in which you performed your ablutions this morning," was Uncle Charlie's salutation to his brother-in-law, as he entered the breakfast room with a boy on each side of him.

Sir Everard laughed. "There are no secrets in this house, you see," he answered, as he shook hands. "What a lovely day!"

"Glorious! but it is going to be very hot. If I remember right, the walk to church is shady all the way. Do these little fellows go to church?"

"Not Miles, but I generally take Humphrey; and wonderful to say he is as quiet as possible. I really think church is the only place in the world where he can sit still."

Humphrey was engaged during the whole of breakfast time in finding the places in his prayer-book, and was too much occupied to talk.

"There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he put in the last marker, and restrained himself with a violent effort as he was about to throw his prayer-book in the air, "now they are all found."

"And now you had better go and dress," said his father, "so as not to keep your uncle and me waiting."

Humphrey joined them in the hall at the last minute, having been detained by a skirmish with Virginie.

Their way to church lay through the flower-garden and down the avenue. They went out by the side-door, leaving Miles looking disconsolately after them, his pretty little face and slight figure framed in the old doorway.

They walked on together in silence for some time.

Sir Everard was enjoying the calm beauty of the summer day; Humphrey was in pursuit of a butterfly; and Uncle Charlie was looking round at the evidences of his dead sister's taste in the laying out of the flower-garden, and thinking of the last time he had walked through it to church, when she had been by his side.

"How hot that boy will make himself before we get to church," said Sir Everard, presently; "I really don't know what he is made of, to run on a day like this."

"He is a fine boy," said Uncle Charlie, as he watched the active little figure skipping over the flower-beds, "and seems as strong and well as possible."

"Yes," said the baronet, "Humphrey has never had a day's illness in his life. He takes after my family, and is going to be as strong and as tall as they."

"He is very like some of the old family pictures I was looking at this morning; the same upright, well-built figure, and dark eyes. Now Miles is altogether different, so fair and slender."

"I fear Miles inherits his mother's constitution," answered the baronet, in a troubled tone. "He is very delicate, Charlie, and the least chill brings on croup, or a nasty little cough. I feel very anxious about him sometimes."

"I daresay he will grow out of it. I believe I had a delicate chest at his age, and I am never troubled with it now."

They were some way down the avenue, and Humphrey was nowhere to be seen.

"I never wait for him," said Sir Everard, as he opened the park gates; "he always turns up at last."

They were half-way across the churchyard when the boy overtook them, flushed and breathless.

Uncle Charlie inwardly groaned at the thoughts of so restless a mortal, as a next-door neighbor, during two hours' service on a hot summer's morning, and watched his movements with some anxiety.

Little Humphrey took off his hat in the porch, shook back his curly hair from his hot forehead, and walked quietly into church.

He led the way to the chancel, where was the old fashioned family pew.

Here he came to a dead stop, for the bolt of the door was high above his reach.

His uncle undid it for him, and was about to pass in, thinking that of course the child would sit by his father; but to his surprise, his little nephew pushed past him, went to the very end of the long pew, and clambered up the high-cushioned seat opposite a big prayer-book, which was surmounted with the monogram "Adelaide."

The rustic congregation had often wondered why the father and son sat at so great a distance from each other in the pew that so seldom had any occupants but themselves; and the old clergyman had at first with difficulty suppressed a smile at the view from the pulpit, of the broad shoulders and bearded face of the six foot man at one extremity, and the top of the small brown head at the other.

But in vain had Sir Everard invited the boy to sit nearer to him; he preferred his isolation. It had once occurred to the widower that it might be because it had been his wife's place; but he never gave Humphrey credit for much heart or sentiment, so he had settled it was a mere whim and never asked the boy any questions on the subject.

The child himself had never confided to anyone but Miles how he loved to feel he was looking at the very same bit of the painted window which his mother's eyes had fallen upon; that his feet were on the very same footstool that her's had rested on; and though the big prayer-book was too heavy for him to open, he liked to put his own little morocco volume upon it, and to press his little fingers on the "Adelaide" that formed the monogram of her name.

He could not have explained what there was about the old church that brought back to him more than anything else the memory of his mother, but so it was: and the usually restless boy would sit quiet in his corner, and think of the first Sunday he had come to church, when he had read out of the same prayer-book with her, and listened to her sweet voice as she joined in the Psalms and Hymns.

The service began, and Humphrey struggled down from his seat.

The villagers had grown accustomed, when the congregation stood up, to see the baronet rise tall and broad from his seat, and the little brown head of his son disappear altogether; but Uncle Charlie was by no means prepared for so complete a collapse, and thought his nephew had fallen. However, there he was, standing on the ground, with his eyes fixed on his prayer-book, and the walls of the pew towering over him on every side.

"Why on earth does he not stand on a stool?" was the young man's inward reflection.

Truth to say, the temptation to gain three feet in height, and get a view of what was passing around, had at times assailed Humphrey, but he felt sure his mother had never stood on the stool, and so he resisted the inclination.

And, indeed, if Lady Duncombe had mounted the very high structure which went by the name of a hassock, the effect would have been a trial to the gravity of the congregation.