'Well, they got into early pointed, and late pointed, and billets and dog-tooths, and all the rest, and Clem went on like a house on fire; and by that time we had got to the big pond, where Collis and half a dozen more were, and he had got his skates, and I believe he did surprise them; they called it first rate.'
'Not at the beginning of the skating. I only wanted to get him down from his altitudes, and never thought it would come to this. You believe that, Felix?'
'It was fine moonlight, and we stayed on ever so long, while Jackman and Clem and two more danced a quadrille on the ice; and when it was over everybody was horribly cold, and Captain Collis said we must all come in and have something hot; and Jackman said he was going to drive home to dinner at eight, and would take us, but every one got talking, and it was half-past eight before we started. It was all in such a scramble, that I had no notion there was anything amiss till Clem began to talk on the way home.'
'Various things--brandy-and-water chiefly. I don't like it, and had some ale; but I was playing with Harry's puppies, and not much noticing Clem.'
'I can't tell. He is so innocent, he would have no notion how stiff to make it. If any one meant mischief, it was Jackman; and I did think once or twice he had found out Tina, and was playing him off. On the way home, when I was trying to hinder poor Clem from falling off, he went on chaffing so, that I longed to jump off, and lay the whip about his ears.'
'Poor Clem!' said Felix, more grieved and shocked than angry, and not insensible to Fulbert's being even more appalled, and quite frightened out of his sulkiness.
'It is a bad business,' he sighed. 'It was all Lance's fault for letting himself be lugged into that baby party.'
Even this was a great admission, and Felix would not blight it by a word.
'It is well the girls are not at home,' was all he said.
'I only told Cherry that Clem wasn't well. I can't face her; I shall go to bed. I would not have had this happen for the world.'
'I shall say nothing to her,' said Felix, dejectedly, turning to leave the room, under a horrible sense of disgrace and stain on the whole family; but at the door he was caught hold of by Fulbert, who looked up at him with a face quite unlike anything he had ever seen in the lad.