Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/463

1885.] and rousing some of us from our beds in the middle of our beauty-sleep."

Venables, although ordinarily imperturbable, was slightly taken aback for once. It was quite a new experience of his uncle, whom, as he flattered himself, he already knew pretty well. However, the next words of Mr Moray enlightened him.

"Your cousin Grace arrived yesterday evening, and I do believe she was up and about with daybreak."

Venables whistled in silent soliloquy. Here was the solution of the riddle, and a wonderful instance of the power of paternal affection. "The revolution in our ways of life is beginning with a vengeance, and in this domestic breeze." And he added to himself with philosophical resignation, "I know that girl would be a nuisance; and if I'm sorry, I can't say I'm surprised." Then recollecting himself, after congratulating her father with an empressement rather at variance with his real feelings, he hastened to speak of yesterday's escape, and was eloquent in his expressions of gratitude. He warmed as he spoke with deep feeling, and at another time he might have made sure of an attentive listener. But now Moray was almost as impatient as Leslie, who tried repeatedly to cut the story short. Moray was eager to hasten back and relieve his daughter's anxieties; and by common consent the pair of craigsmen slackened their pace, leaving their uncle to go forward and announce their arrival.

The immediate upshot of the affair was to place the meeting of the cousins on an easier and more cordial footing than a longer acquaintance might have done. Grace had a placid nature, or at least a naturally sweet temperament, which went far towards keeping her quiet and calm under any circumstances. But she had a lively imagination as well. She may have been fatigued by the journey, and instead of sleeping soundly as usual, she had passed a restless and anxious night. Her feelings had been overstrung in picturing all manner of distressing casualties – follies, as she tried to assure herself, which she had been ashamed to acknowledge to her father. But when she saw him hurrying home unaccompanied, she had made up her mind for the worst; and the reaction was as great as the relief, when she knew that her fears were unfounded. Profound thankfulness made her suddenly lighthearted again; and when the younger gentlemen were passing the gate of the short approach, her high spirits of the day before were more buoyant for their temporary depression.

It would have been difficult to imagine a prettier picture than that of the bright graceful figure in the doorway of the grim old house. And closer observation only brought out new beauties, as both Venables and Leslie were fain to admit. Their recollections, as they had seen her last, were of a tall, ungainly, and rather forward schoolgirl; while Moray, in answer to requests that had been by no means over-urgent, had refused to show his young friends her photograph, on the ground that no photographer had done her justice.

There the fond father was right. Jack Venables's first impression was one of unqualified admiration; and then and there he abjured the abominable heresy that the presence of his cousin could be anything but a gain. His second thoughts were as natural, if less romantic; and he remembered that he had passed