Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/730

720 being called before seven o'clock, and wandering so far and wide in her quest.

The oysters! Oh ay, she is glad to get the oysters, but they might be had nearer band; her mamma little thinks how far she goes; the water will be upon her some day; the mornings are getting too cold, she will catch (expressive phrase!) her death.

Betty turns a deaf ear, and the old woman's maunderinbs go for nothing.

Now they are preparing for the Christmas party, and already there is a change.

"Why in the world could Arthur not have waited till next week, when those other people are coming, instead of rushing down upon us in this wad, and bringing that Captain Blurt, Bluff, Blount, or whatever his name is, with him?"

Sir Charles does not like being put out of his way, and telegraphic messages are not at all in his line; but the sore which chafes him most is, that Arthur demands what he is uncertain of being able to comply with, and yet would ill like to refuse — a roe-drive for himself and his friend the very day after their arrival.

"Coming on Monday night with Blount. Not till late. Have a hunt for Tuesday."

So ran the telegram, and certainly it was a cool one.

They knew who Captain Blount was, had heard of him as one of Arthur's brother officers, but not a word of his coming to Castle Graeme till that morning.

One thing was good — they were not to arrive till late; and Lady Graeme breathed a sigh of relief as she read the words. Her housekeeping difficulties are great at this time of year, and potato-soup and Loch Fyne herrings would not commend themselves to the young guardsman as first courses, when his friend is there.

When alone, Arthur can make very short work of the soup, and will come back for herrings a second and a third time; but that is quite another thing.

Every one knows, down to the lowest scullery-maid, that when the captain, as he has been fondly styled since the day he held his commission, brings home a guest, they must look to their steel.

Nothing escapes his eye. Little omissions and economies which are winked at by the kind old laird and his gentle dame, had better not be tried before the rampant young autocrat, who is the real master of the house while he is in it; and Duncan shakes his head with twinkling humorous eyes, as he unfastens the second silver chest, and Macky bustles up again and again to her linen-press and her store-room, thinking, with fond, proud hearts, how they will catch it if everything is not quite to my lord's mind.

As for Bee, the telegram put her quite in a flutter. There were flowers to be got, few as there are in the greenhouse at present; rooms to be arranged above all, oysters to be brought in from her own reserve bed on the shore.

Who that had seen Betty Graeme when the tide was out that morning, tucking up her short skirts, putting aside the slippery tangle, and kneeling on the rocks, while with grave and anxious care she selected her oysters; who that had watched her afterwards bearing them, breathless and dripping, homeward — displaying her freight with honest pride at the window where her father sat — doing it all for herself because the boys were out, and doing it as well or better than any of them could, — would have dreamt that this dainty apparition at the evening dinner-table could be one and the same creature?

No harm, either, in the transformation, if only Beatrix will still be Betty at heart.

"If only," thinks Lady Graeme, "Arthur will not begin putting his foolish notions into her head, and if only Captain Blount will let her alone!" Captain Blount does let her alone, unexpectedly, unaccountably in the mother's eyes.

He has come down to shoot roes and wild-duck, and does not in the least heed Arthur's fears that he will find the old place dull, nor his insinuations that his sister would have had some girls down to meet them if she had known.

Arthur means to be questioned about the sister.

He would have described her as just out, and awfully run after, which he would have declared was the greatest nuisance, as he was expected to tool her about everywhere — with whatever else he supposes likely to enhance her consequence.

But his friend does not give him the chance.

He has never met Miss Graeme, and does not in the least care whether she has girls to meet them or not; nor indeed, to tell the truth, is he so passionately attached to Arthur as to be very deeply interested in his people at all: but he does like wild-duck shooting, and he fancies very much the idea of a roe-drive.

Sir Charles, however, he is taken with, in spite of himself. In spite of the black watered silk waistcoat and morning trousers too.

Harry is a sportsman, and he can reverence a veteran in the craft.