Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/85

 “Do him good,” came the rough voice of the invalid.

Miss Louisa, attending to the youngest child, looked up in protest.

“Why has he done that?” asked Mary’s low, musical voice.

“He wanted some excitement, I suppose,” said the vicar. “Shall we say grace?”

The children were arranged, all bent their heads, grace was pronounced, at the last word every face was being raised to go on with the interesting subject.

“He’s just done the right thing, for once,” came the rather deep voice of the mother; “save him from becoming a drunken sot, like the rest of them.”

“They’re not all drunken, mama,” said Miss Louisa, stubbornly.

“It’s no fault of their upbringing if they’re not. Walter Durant is a standing disgrace.”

“As I told Mrs. Durant,” said the vicar, eating hungrily, “it is the best thing he could have done. It will take him away from temptation during the most dangerous years of his life—how old is he—nineteen?”

“Twenty,” said Miss Louisa.

“Twenty!” repeated the vicar. “It will give him wholesome discipline and set before him some sort of standard of duty and honour—nothing could have been better for him. But——”

“We shall miss him from the choir,” said Miss Louisa, as if taking opposite sides to her parents.

“That is as it may be,” said the vicar. “I