One Maid's Mischief. George Manville Fenn
in England for a month or two, and am coming down to see you and chat over old times. Don’t make any fuss, old fellow! Bed on a sofa will do for an old campaigner like me. I’ve got business your way—to see some young ladies at Mayleyfield—daughters of two people out in the Peninsula. Been educated at home, and I am going to be their escort back. Nuisance, but must do it; expect me to-morrow.
Yours very truly—
Harry Bolter.
The Reverend Arthur Rosebury.
“Why, Arthur, he’s coming here!”
“Yes, my dear. I’m very glad!”
“But to-day, Arthur! What shall I do?”
“Do, my dear Mary? Nothing! Bolter never wants anything done for him, unless he’s very much altered, and I don’t think he will be.”
“But the young ladies at Mayleyfield? Why that must be at Miss Twettenham’s establishment!”
“Very probably, my dear!” said the Reverend Arthur, getting up to walk up and down the room. “I shall be very, very glad to see Harry Bolter. I wonder whether he has brought any specimens?”
“To be sure, I’ve heard that the Misses Twettenham have several young ladies there whose parents are in India.”
“Not India, my dear. Henry Bolter has been in the Malay Peninsula. He was at Singapore and then at Penang.”
“And the house in such a terrible muddle!” exclaimed Miss Mary. “Whatever shall I do?”
“What a little world this is,” said the Reverend Arthur. “How strange that Henry Bolter should, so to speak, have friends as near as Mayleyfield!”
“Oh, Arthur, Arthur, you really have no thought whatever! To-day is baking day!”
“I am very glad, my dear Mary! Henry Bolter was always, I remember, fond of new bread. We used to call him Hot-roll Bolter at college.”
“Arthur!”
“Yes, my dear Mary.”
“I really am thankful that you never married! You would have worried any reasonable woman into her grave!”
“I am very sorry. I hope not, my dear Mary! I think if I had ever seen any lady I should have liked to call my wife, my whole study would have been to make her happy!”
“Yes, yes, my dear Arthur!” said the little petulant lady, placing her hands upon her tall, thin brother’s shoulders once more to pull him down to be kissed, “I know you would; but you are so tiresome.”
“I’m—I’m afraid I am, my dear Mary. I think sometimes that I must be very stupid.”
“Nonsense, Arthur; you are not. You are one of the best and cleverest of men; but you do get so lost in your studies that you forget all ordinary troubles of life. Why, there, actually you have come down this morning without any shirt-collar.”
“Have I? Have I, Mary?” said the Reverend Arthur, looking hastily in a glass. “How very foolish of me! I was anxious to get down, I suppose.”
“What we are to do for dinner I don’t know!” exclaimed Miss Mary. “The butcher won’t kill till the day after to-morrow.”
“Chickens,” suggested her brother.
“You can’t feed men always on chickens, Arthur.”
“No, no, my dear; but Henry Bolter has been a great deal in the East; and you might do a deal with chickens.”
“Oh, I know, Arthur,” said the little lady, pettishly. “Roast and boiled.”
“And curried! Bolter is sure to like curry.”
“And then grumble at it, and say it is not as good as he gets abroad. You never have anything in the garden either!”
“I have some very fine asparagus, my dear Mary.”
“Ah, well, that’s something.”
“And some forced rhubarb.”
“I could use that too. But really it is too bad to take one so by surprise. Men are so unreasonable!”
The Reverend Arthur Rosebury took a turn or two up and down the room, with a troubled look in his face, ending by stopping short before his sister.
“I—I am very sorry, my dear Mary,” he said. “Can I help you a little?”
“What by getting in the way, Arthur?” said the little lady, pettishly. “Nonsense! stuff!”
He smoothed his long, thin, closely-shaven face with one hand, gazing pensively at his sister.
“I—I used to be very fond of Henry Bolter,” he said, in a hesitating way.
“Why?” she said sharply. “I don’t believe in these very warm friendships between men!”
“It was when our father died, Mary, more than twenty years ago; and for want of a hundred pounds I thought I should have to leave college.”
“Yes?” said the little lady, sharply.
“Henry Bolter found it out, and he forced the money into my hand.”
“He did?”
“Yes, my dear Mary, and he never would let me pay it back again.”
“But didn’t you try, Arthur?”
“Four times over, my dear Mary; but he always sent the money back to me in a letter with only one word in it.”
“And what was that?”
There was a dry, half-pitiful smile in the Reverend Arthur’s face as he replied, gazing fixedly the while at his sister:
“ ‘Beast!’ ”
“What, Arthur?”
“He said ‘beast.’ He met me afterwards, and vowed he would never speak to me again if I alluded to the money, which he said was a gift; and it has never been repaid to this day.”
“Beast!” ejaculated Miss Mary, thoughtfully.
“Yes, my dear Mary, but I have that sum put away, ready for him to take when he will.”
“Of course,” said Miss Rosebury thoughtfully.
“And I should like to give Harry Bolter a warm welcome when he comes, Mary; not a welcome of corn and wine, oil, olive and honey, Mary—but a welcome from the heart, such as would please him more.”
“My dear Arthur,” cried the little lady, throwing her arms round her brother’s lank, spare form, “you mustn’t notice my crotchety ways, I’m getting an old woman—a fidgety old maid. Dr. Bolter shall have as warm a welcome as I can give.”
“I knew it sister,” he said tenderly embracing her; and it was very foolish, but the eyes of both were wet with tears as the little lady snatched herself away.
“There, Arthur, now go, and don’t you come near me again except to bring me the asparagus and rhubarb, for I shall be as busy as a bee. There’s the doctor’s room to prepare.”
“No; let him have mine.”
“What, with all that litter of dried plants and flies?”
“Just what he would like.”
“There, go away.”
The Reverend Arthur Rosebury was about to say something more, but his sister checked him, and in a thoughtful dreamy way, he went slowly out into the garden, where at the end of ten minutes he had forgotten rhubarb, asparagus, even the coming of Dr. Bolter, for the sun had shone out very hot, and the