The Younger Set | Page 6

nurses or servants in this remarkable house who
occasionally wear copper-tinted hair and black fox furs?"
"No. Eileen does. Won't you please wriggle--"
"Who is Eileen?"
"Eileen? Why--don't you know who Eileen is?"
"No, I don't," began Captain Selwyn, when a delighted shout from the
children swung him toward the door again. His sister, Mrs. Gerard,
stood there in carriage gown and sables, radiant with surprise.
"Phil! _You!_ Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling in from the
antipodes--dear fellow!" recovering from the fraternal embrace and
holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved hands. "Six years!" she
said again and again, tenderly reproachful; "Alexandrine was a baby of
six--Drina, child, do you remember my brother--do you remember your
Uncle Philip? She doesn't remember; you can't expect her to recollect;
she is only twelve, Phil--"
"I remember one thing," observed Drina serenely.
Brother and sister turned toward her in pride and delight; and the child
went on: "My Aunt Alixe; I remember her. She was so pretty,"
concluded Drina, nodding thoughtfully in the effort to remember more;
"Uncle Philip, where is she now?"
But her uncle seemed to have lost his voice as well as his colour, and

Mrs. Gerard's gloved fingers tightened on the lapels of his coat.
"Drina--child--" she faltered; but Drina, immersed in reflection, smiled
dreamily; "So pretty," she murmured; "I remember my Aunt Alixe--"
"Drina!" repeated her mother sharply, "go and find Bridget this
minute!"
Selwyn's hesitating hand sought his moustache; he lifted his eyes--the
steady gray eyes, slightly bloodshot--to his sister's distressed face.
"I never dreamed--" she began--"the child has never spoken of--of her
from that time to this! I never dreamed she could remember--"
"I don't understand what you are talking about, mother," said Drina; but
her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving to speak lightly;
"Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is Katie? And what is all
this I hear from Dawson? It can't be possible that you have been
fox-hunting all over the house again! Your nurses know perfectly well
that you are not to hunt anywhere except in your own nursery."
"I know it," said Drina, "but Kit-Ki got out and ran downstairs. We had
to follow her, you know, until she went to earth."
Selwyn quietly bent over toward Billy: "'Ware wire, my friend," he said
under his breath; "_you'd_ better cut upstairs and unlock that
schoolroom."
And while Mrs. Gerard turned her attention to the cluster of clamouring
younger children, the boy vanished only to reappear a moment later,
retreating before the vengeful exclamations of the lately imprisoned
nurses who pursued him, caps and aprons flying, bewailing aloud their
ignominious incarceration.
"Billy!" exclaimed his mother, "did you do that? Bridget, Master
William is to take supper by himself in the schoolroom--and no
marmalade!--No, Billy, not one drop!"

"We all saw him lock the door," said Drina honestly.
"And you let him? Oh, Drina!--And Ellen! Katie! No marmalade for
Miss Drina--none for any of the children. Josie, mother feels dreadfully
because you all have been so naughty. Winthrop!--your finger!
Instantly! Clemence, baby, where on earth did you acquire all that
grime on your face and fists?" And to her brother: "Such a household,
Phil! Everybody incompetent--including me; everything topsy-turvy;
and all five dogs perfectly possessed to lie on that pink rug in the music
room.--Have they been there to-day, Drina?--while you were
practising?"
"Yes, and there are some new spots, mother. I'm very sorry."
"Take the children away!" said Mrs. Gerard. But she bent over, kissing
each culprit as the file passed out, convoyed by the amply revenged
nurses. "No marmalade, remember; and mother has a great mind not to
come up at bedtime and lean over you. Mother has no desire to lean
over her babies to-night."
To "lean over" the children was always expected of this mother; the
direst punishment on the rather brief list was to omit this intimate
evening ceremony.
"M-mother," stammered the Master of Fox Hounds, "you will lean over
us, won't you?"
"Mother hasn't decided--"
"Oh, muvver!" wailed Josie; and a howl of grief and dismay rose from
Winthrop, modified to a gurgle by the forbidden finger.
"You will, won't you?" begged Drina. "We've been pretty bad, but not
bad enough for that!"
"I--Oh, yes, I will. Stop that noise, Winthrop! Josie, I'm going to lean
over you--and you, too, Clemence, baby. Katie, take those dogs away
immediately; and remember about the marmalade."

Reassured, smiling through tears, the children trooped off, it being the
bathing hour; and Mrs. Gerard threw her fur stole over one shoulder
and linked her slender arm in her brother's.
"You see, I'm not much of a mother," she said; "if I was I'd stay here all
day and every day, week in and year out, and try