Page:The Fate of Fenella (1892).djvu/23

 our voices. Let them talk. They will say I picked you up!"

"So you did. Do you know any of them?"

"Heaven forbid! A woman, my dear, who never sits in the drawing room with the other ladies," said Fenella, adroitly mimicking a sour female voice, "there must be something wrong about her. And so there is," she added, below her breath, and for a moment the little face grew hard.

"How is Ronny?" said Frank.

"He is very well," she said nonchalantly. "Poor wee man, isn't it a good job he isn't a girl? And he hasn't begun to grow ugly and horrid and masculine yet—he is all mine, mine!"

The mother's love in her rang out triumphantly, and her face grew very tender.

"We have such good times together, he and I," she went on happily; "he is not with me to-day, because he is playing cricket at the present moment. We go down to the Stray with the bat and stumps, and forage round for a scratch team. I took a hand myself the other day, and actually bowled out a butcher's boy!"

Frank laughed, then shook his head. "You are quite as mad as ever," he said. "Where is your companion?"

"I hope," said Fenella calmly, "that she is dead. I didn't try to polish off any of the other ones, because they meant well in spite of their