"Sure you have the pail of water handy, Jack?"
"Yes, sir, quite sure! Stepped into it just now."
"Then you had it footy, not handy!" murmured Hugh. His guardian turned, and looked anxiously at the boy.
"Hum, ha!" he said. "Talk a little nonsense, eh, Young Sir? That's right! Feel quite well this evening, hey?"
Hugh certainly did not look well. His rosy color was gone, and there were dark circles under his blue eyes; but he answered so brightly, and was so full of joy and delightful anticipation, that Colonel Ferrers smiled even as he sighed, and turned to his brother.
"Pretty sight, Raymond?" he said, for perhaps the twentieth time. "Pretty custom, eh? Give you my word, sir, I haven't enjoyed anything so much for years."
"If you go on at this rate, Tom," rejoined his brother, "you will be in short jackets again in a year or two. After all, what is there in the world so good as youth, my dear fellow? Let us hold it fast, say I, as long as we can!"
"Yes!" growled the Colonel. "But you wouldn't have said that before you came here, Raymond Ferrers; and I shouldn't have said it before Hildegarde Grahame came here,--"
"And her mother, of course!" cried the Colonel, testily. "She never thought of coming here without her mother, did she? Don't be a quibbler, my good fellow! If there is one thing I find it difficult to have Christian patience with, it is a quibbler. I tell you, sir, that before those people came here my life was a stagnant fish-pond, sir; with no fish in it, either, and--and it shows what a young woman can do, sir, when she is willing just to _be_ a young woman, and to minister cheerfulness and joy and--and affection to the people around her. Three years ago I had not a friend in the world,--or thought I had not, which amounts to the same thing,--except a round-shouldered fiddle-maker in another State, whom I never expected to see again. I was morose, sir! I was unfit for human companionship! And now--" the Colonel stopped to wipe his eye-glasses, and blew his nose portentously--"now I have a son in my own house,--two sons just now, for if you pretend that Jack is more your son than mine, I scoff at you, sir, and I deride you!--and a daughter close by, who will come to me if my little finger aches. And to that daughter, sir,--under Providence," and the Colonel bowed his head and dropped his voice,--"to Hildegarde Grahame, I owe all this, and more. So I say,--"