Fernley House

" Hugh and Margaret, all unconscious of her scrutiny, were enjoying themselves extremely " Frontispiece " Margaret did the honors, still feeling very shy " 29 " At this moment Polly appeared, red-cheeked and breathless " 33 " She was a slenderer Peggy, with the same blue, honest eyes " 86 " She looked up, and saw Grace sitting on a broad, low branch " 137 " On the second landing they paused to salute the old portraits " 148 " A tall, slender figure half ran, half tottered into the room " 181 " 'I propose . . . the health of the best man . . . that lives upon this earth to-day; . . . the health of my Uncle John! '" 238 FERNLEY HOUSE A DUET "Well, Margaret!" "Well, Uncle John!" "Not a word to throw at a dog, as Rosalind says?" "You are not a dog, Uncle John. Besides, you know all about it without my saying a word, so why should I be silly, and spoil your comfortable cigar? Dear children! They will have a delightful time, I hope; and of course it is perfectly right that they should go to their father when he wants them; and—the summer will pass quickly." "Very quickly!" Mr. Montfort assented, watching his smoke rings float upward. "And Peggy is coming; and—oh, we shall be all right, of course we shall; only—we do miss them, don't we, Uncle?" "I should think we did! A house is a poor place without children; and we flatter ourselves that our two—eh, Margaret?" "Oh, they are the dearest children in the world," said Margaret with conviction. "There is no possible doubt about that." She sighed, and took up her work; Mr. Montfort blew smoke rings and watched them melt into the air. There was an interval of sympathetic silence. The children, Basil and Susan D., Margaret's cousins, had hardly been gone two hours, yet the time seemed already long to Margaret Montfort. Fernley House, which only this morning had been so running over with joy and sunlight, and happy noise and bustle, seemed suddenly to have become a great empty barrack, full of nothing but silence. Margaret, after putting away, sadly enough, the things that the children had left about, had been glad to join her uncle on the pleasant back verandah that overlooked the garden. Fernley was in the full glory…