Paddy-The-Next-Best-Thing. Gertrude Page
he added, as if leading up to something, and then blurted out a little awkwardly, “I suppose you’re very glad they’re coming back?”
“Yes,” Eileen replied simply; “aren’t you?”
Jack did not reply, but remarked instead:
“I don’t suppose Lawrence will stay at home long. This place is much too tame for him.”
Eileen only gazed fixedly at the distant sea.
“I can’t say I think it will be much loss to the neighbourhood,” continued outspoken Jack. “He does fancy himself so.”
“I don’t think he does,” she said. “It is only that the people about here do not appeal to him in some way, and so he stands aloof.”
“We’re not clever enough, I suppose; but we could give him points in a good many things, all the same,” a little savagely, biting at a piece of string with his strong white teeth. “What has he ever done beyond taking a few degrees at Oxford?”
“You haven’t even done that.” And Eileen turned to him suddenly, with serious eyes. She was the only one of all about him who ever took him to task seriously about his idle life. His aunts were too fond and too indulgent, his father too wrapped up in his books and his loss, and Paddy, being as irresponsible and happy-go-lucky herself, only thought about the good time they were having in the present. Eileen, however, saw further, and sometimes tried to influence him.
He was silent now before the veiled reproach in her words, but presently, with an irresistible little smile, he said.
“You wouldn’t have me go away and leave Aunt Jane and Aunt Mary weeping over my empty chair and old shoes and things, would you?”
“Perhaps you will have to go some day,” she said.
“Yes, but why worry about it now? Sufficient unto the day—”
“Yes; only you are wasting your best years.”
“Oh, I don’t think so, and I’m not doing any harm to anyone.”
“You may be harming yourself.”
“How?”
Eileen gazed dreamily before her, and presently said:
“You see, I don’t think life is altogether meant to be just a playtime for anyone. We have to make our five talents ten talents.”
“But not all in a great hurry at the beginning.”
“It is possible to put things off too long, though.”
“That’s what Paddy said because I kept her waiting nearly half an hour this afternoon. She was very uppish,” and again he smiled at the recollection, and Eileen gave him up.
“You are quite incorrigible,” she said. “I might as well try and inspire Kitty,” and she patted the spaniel, now curled up beside them.
“Perhaps, but it really isn’t worth while to worry now, it is? Everything’s so jolly, it would be a pity to spoil it. You’re so serious and solemn, Eileen. Paddy never bothers her head about any mortal thing—why do you?”
“I expect I’m made that way. It would not do for everyone to be the same. Shall we go home now? We shall be just in time for tea.”
He got up at once and shouldered his gun, starting ahead of her to clear the brambles and stones out of her path, and turning to give her his hand where the descent became difficult. Had it been Paddy they would have scrambled down at a breakneck pace together, and he would have given no thought at all to her progress, for the simple reason that she would only have scorned it if he had.
But Eileen, somehow, was different. She was really quite as good a climber as Paddy, and probably a much surer one, but on the other hand she seemed more frail and dependent, and Jack liked helping her, even though he knew she would get along quite as well by herself.
At the lodge gates they met the two aunts, and Eileen was promptly carried off to the Parsonage to tea, the two little ladies at once commencing to pour into her sympathetic ears an account of the sad fate of one of their favourite cats as they went along.
“My dear, when we started out this afternoon,” began Miss Jane, “we heard a most heartrending cry in the bushes, and after hunting about, we found such a pitiful object. It was scarcely recognisable even to us.”
“Not even to us,” echoed Miss Mary sadly.
“It was actually poor dear Lionel, one of Lady Dudley’s last kittens,” continued Miss Jane, “and what do you think had happened to him?”
“Was he caught in a trap!” asked Eileen.
“Oh, far worse,” in a tearful voice. “Mary and I are feeling terribly upset about it.”
“Yes; quite upset,” came the sad echo.
“Has he singed the end of his tail?” asked Jack with due solemnity, “or has Lady Dudley been giving him a bad time because he stole her milk as usual?”
“Worse, my dear Jack, worse still,” with a mournful shake of both heads. “He has fallen into a barrel of tar.” And the two little ladies stood still suddenly, to further impress the terrible nature of the calamity.
“Oh, Christmas!” exclaimed Jack, unable to resist laughing, while Eileen asked most anxiously, “But he got out again?”
“Yes, my dear, but think of the poor darling’s condition!”
“What a home-coming!” said Jack irrelevantly.
“He was coated all over with tar,” went on Miss Jane, now addressing Eileen only, and ignoring Jack with contempt, “and he had tried to clean himself, and of course, in licking his fur, had swallowed a lot of tar.”
“Actually swallowed it,” put in Miss Mary on the point of tears.
“And of course he was in a dreadful state, and probably in great pain, so we put him in a basket and took his straight away to Dr. Phillips.”
“Tar must be very indigestible,” murmured Jack.
“And did he cure him?” asked Eileen kindly.
“Alas, no: he said nothing could be done for him at all, and the kindest thing would be to poison him at once.”
A big tear rolled down Miss Mary’s cheek.
“Poor Lionel,” she murmured tenderly.
“We buried him ourselves,” finished Miss Jane, “under the cedar tree, as close to the churchyard gate as we could put him.”
“Much better have put him by the rhubarb,” said Jack, for which Eileen frowned at him over their heads, but instead of being in the least ashamed of himself, he looked up at the clouds and murmured feelingly: “Lady Dudley has still five living—let us be thankful for small mercies.”
Chapter Four.
Paddy’s Adventure.
Meanwhile in a very ruffled frame of mind, not only because Jack had kept her waiting half an hour, but also because she knew he had gone off quite contentedly up the mountain to look for Eileen, when he found he was in disgrace with her, Paddy trimmed her sail and sped across the Loch to Rostrevor. There was a fairly strong breeze, and the management of the boat kept her busy, but when she landed at Rostrevor alone, she had time to further anathematise Jack in her heart, and was in two minds about going up to the Hendersons at all. They had arranged to come over for tennis, but somehow Paddy did not think she wanted to play. She felt as if she wanted