“Of course I do,” said Fordham, in a much more decided tone than he had used in the morning.  “I’m not going to do anything so barbarous as to leave them to some German practitioner; and when we are here, I don’t see why they should have advice out from home—-not half so good probably.”

“You’re a brick, Duke,” uttered Cecil; and though Fordham hated slang, he smiled at the praise.

“And now, Duke, be a good fellow, and give me some clothes.  That brute Reeves has not brought me in one rag.”

“Really it is hardly worth while.  It is nearly eight o’clock, and I don’t know where your portmanteau was put.  Shall I get you a book?”

“No; but if you’d get me a pen and ink, I want to write to mother.”

Such a desire was not too frequent in Cecil, and Fordham was glad enough to promote it, bringing in his own neat apparatus, with only a mild entreaty that his favourite pen might be well treated, and the sheets respected.  He had written his own letter of explanation of his first act of independence, and he looked with some wonder at his brother’s rapid writing, not without fear that some sudden pressure for a foolish debt might have been the result of his tete-a-tete with his dangerous friend.  Cecil’s letters were too apt to be requests for money or confessions of debts, and if this were the case, what would be Mrs. Evelyn’s view of the conduct of the whole party in disregarding her wishes?

Had he been with his mother, he would have probably been called into consultation over the letter, but he was forced to remain without the privilege here offered to the reader:—-

“Baden Hotel, Leukerbad, June 14.

“Dearest Mother,-—Duke has written about our falling in with the Brownlows, and how pluckily Friar caught us up.  It was a regular mercy, for the little one couldn’t have lived without Dr. Medlicott, and most likely Lucas is in for a rheumatic fever.  He has been telling me all about it, and how frightful it was to be all night out on the edge of the glacier in a thick fog with his ankle strained, and how little Armine went on with his texts and hymns and wasn’t a bit afraid, but quite happy.  You never would believe what a fellow Brownlow is.  We have had a great talk, and you will never have to say again that he does me harm.

“Mammy, darling, I want to tell you that I was a horrible donkey last half, worse than you guessed, and I am sorrier than ever I was before, and this is a real true resolution not to do it again.  Brownlow and I have promised to stand by one another about right and wrong to our lives’ end.  He means it, and what Brownlow means he does, and so do I. We said your collect, and somehow I do feel as if God would help us now.

“Please, dearest mother, forgive me for all I have not told you.

“Duke is very well and jolly.  He is quite smitten with Mrs. Brownlow, and, what is more, so is Reeves, who says she is ’such a lady that it is a pleasure to do anything for her.’