“And do you think,” said the Colonel, “that this young lord is going to stay on all this time in this dull place for the sake of an utter stranger?”.

“Jock and Evelyn were always great friends at Eton,” said John.  “Then my uncle did something, I don’t know what, that Medlicott is grateful for, and they have promised to see Armine through this illness.  The place agrees with Fordham; they say he has never been so well or active since he came out.”

“What is he like?” inquired Babie.

“Like, Babie?  Like anything long and limp you can think of.  He sits all in a coil and twist, and you don’t think there’s much of him; but when he gets up and pulls himself upright, you go looking and looking till you don’t know where’s the top of him, till you see a thin white face in washed-out hair.  He is a good fellow, awfully kind, and I suppose he can’t help being such a tremendous-—” John hesitated, in deference to his father, for a word that was not slang, and finally chose “don.”

“Oh,” sighed Babie, “Armie said in his note he was jolly beyond description.”

“Well, so he is,” said John; “he plays chess with Armie, and brings him flowers and books, and waits on him as you used to do on a sick doll.  And that’s just what he is; he ought to have been a woman, and he would have been much happier too, poor fellow.  I’d rather be dead at once than drag about such a life of coddling as he does.”

“Poor lad!” said his father.  “Did Janet understand that I was waiting for those letters, I wonder?”

“You had better go and see, Babie,” said Miss Ogilvie.  “Perhaps she cannot find them.”

Babie set off, and John proceeded to explain that Mrs. Evelyn was still detained in London by old Lady Fordham, who continued to be kept between life and death by her doctors.  Meantime, the sons could dispose of themselves as they pleased, while under the care of Dr. Medlicott, and were not wanted at home, so that there was little doubt but that they would remain with Armine as long as he needed their physician’s care.

All the while Elfie was flitting about, pelting Johnny with handfuls snatched from over-blown roses, and though he returned the assault at every pause, his grey travelling suit was bestrewn with crimson, pink, cream, and white petals.

At last the debris of a huge Eugenie Grandet hit him full on the bridge of his nose, and caused him to exclaim—-

“Nay, Elfie, you little wretch; that was quite a good rose—­not fair game,” and leaping up to give her chase in and out among the beds, they nearly ran against Janet returning with the letters, and saying “she was sorry to have been so long, but mother’s hoards were never easy places of research.”

Barbara came more slowly back, and looked somewhat as if she had had a sharper rebuke than she understood or relished.

Poor child! she had suffered much in this her first real trouble, and a little thing was enough to overset her.  She had not readily recovered from the petulant tone of anger with which Janet told her not to come peeping and worrying.