As Allen declared these evenings a grievance, and often thought himself unable to bear family chatter, she had made the old consulting room as like his luxurious apartment at home as furniture and fittings could do, and he was always free to retire thither.  Indeed the toleration and tenderness with which his mother treated him were a continual wonder and annoyance to Barbara, the active little busy bee, who not unjustly considered him the drone of the family, and longed to sting him, not to death but to exertion.

It was provoking that when all the other youths had long finished breakfast and gone forth, Mother Carey should wait lingering in the dining-room to cherish some delicate hot morceau and cup of coffee, till the tardy, soft-falling feet came down the stairs, and then sit patiently as long as he chose to dally with his meal, telling how little he had slept.  Babie had tried her tongue on both, but Allen, when she shouted at his door that breakfast was ready, came forth no sooner, and when he did so, told his mother that he could not have children screaming at his door at all hours of the morning.  Mother Carey replied to her impatient champion that while waiting for Allen was her time for writing letters and reading amusing books, and that the day was only too long for him already, poor fellow, without urging him to make it longer.

“More shame for him,” muttered pitiless sixteen.

After breakfast Allen generally strolled out to see the papers or to bestow his time somewhere—-in the picture galleries or in the British Museum, where he had a reading order; but it was always uncertain whether he would disappear for the whole day, shut himself up in his own room, or hang about the drawing-room, very much injured if his mother could not devote herself to him.  Indeed she always did so, except when she was bound to take Barbara to some of her classes (including cookery), or when she had promised herself to Dr. and Mrs. Lucas, who were now both very infirm, and knew not how to be thankful enough for the return of one who became like a daughter to them; while Jock, their godson, at once made himself like the best of grandsons, and never failed to give them a brightening, cheering hour every Sunday.

The science of cookery was by no means a needless task, for the cook was very plain, and Allen’s appetite was dainty, and comfort at dinner could only be hoped for by much thought and contrivance.  Allen was never discourteous to his mother herself, but he would look at her in piteous reproach, and affect to charge all failures on the cook, or on “children being allowed to meddle,” the most cutting thing to Babie he could say.  Then the two Johns always took up the cudgels, and praised the food with all their might.  Indeed the Friar was often sensible of a strong desire to flog the dawdling melancholy out of his cousin, and force him no longer to hang a dead weight on his mother; and even Jock began to be annoyed at her unfailing patience and pity, though he understood her compassion better than did those who had never felt a wound.