‘Hurrah! jolly! jolly!’ shouted Reginald, dancing on the ottoman, ‘and mind there are lots of squibs.’

’And that Master Reginald Mohun has a new cap and bells for the occasion,’ said Lord Rotherwood.

‘Let me make some fireworks,’ said Maurice.

‘You will begin like a noble baron of the hospitable olden time,’ said Lily.

’It will be like the old days, when every birthday of yours was a happy day for the people at Hetherington,’ said Emily.

‘Ah! those were happy old days,’ said Lord Rotherwood, in a graver tone.

‘These are happy days, are not they?’ said Lily, smiling.

Her cousin answered with a sigh, ’Yes, but you do not remember the old ones, Lily;’ then, after a pause, he added, ’It was a grievous mistake to shut up the castle all these years.  We have lost sight of everybody.  I do not even know what has become of the Aylmers.’

‘They went to live in London,’ said Emily, ’Aunt Robert used to write to them there.’

‘I know, I know, but where are they now?’

‘In London, I should think,’ said Emily.  ’Some one said Miss Aylmer was gone out as a governess.’

’Indeed!  I wish I could hear more!  Poor Mr. Aylmer!  He was the first man who tried to teach me Latin.  I wonder what has become of that mad fellow Edward, and Devereux, my father’s godson!  Was not Mrs. Aylmer badly off?  I cannot bear that people should be forgotten!’

‘It is not so very long that we have lost sight of them,’ said Emily.

‘Eight years,’ said Lord Rotherwood.  ’He died six weeks after my father.  Well!  I have made my mother promise to come home.’

‘Really?’ said Lilias, ‘she has been coming so often.’

’Aye—­but she is coming this time.  She is to spend the winter at the castle, and make acquaintance with all the neighbourhood.’

‘His lordship is romancing,’ said Claude to Lily in a confidential tone.

’I’ll punish you for suspecting me of talking hyperborean language—­ hyperbolical, I mean,’ cried Lord Rotherwood; ’I’ll make you dance the Polka with all the beauty and fashion.’

‘Then I shall stay at Oxford till it is over,’ said Claude.

‘You do not know what a treasure you will be,’ said the Marquis, ’ladies like nothing so well as dancing with a fellow twice the height he should be.’

‘Beware of putting me forward,’ said Claude, rising, and, as he leant against the chimney-piece, looking down from his height of six feet three, with a patronising air upon his cousin, ’I shall be taken for the hero, and you for my little brother.’

‘I wish I was,’ said Lord Rotherwood, ’it would be much better fun.  I should escape the speechifying, the worst part of it.’

‘Yes,’ said Claude, ’for one whose speeches will be scraps of three words each, strung together with the burthen of the apprentices’ song, Radara tadara, tandore.’