The Heiress of Wyvern Court | Page 8

Inna liked the pretty, free, fair-haired, fair-faced girl.
"Oh, first-rate, thank you, isn't she, Dick?" said she, appealing to her brother, who was just settling with Oscar.
"Oh yes! We'll just manage a morning of it in the woods; you can show your cousin Black Hole another time. Isn't what?" he questioned of his sister.
"Isn't Snowdrop first-rate?"
"Rather," returned he, with a nod at Inna, which made her blush and laugh.
"I'm glad she's well. And so you call her Snowdrop?"
"Yes; and what do you think of our donkey? We call him Rameses: that's Dick's choice of a name."
"He's a beautiful creature," returned Inna, stroking the animal's wise old head.
"Yes," replied Dick, "I'm a lover of old names, so I thought I'd go back to the Pharaohs. Not a bad idea, was it? though no compliment, I daresay, to the old fogies."
"No," laughed Oscar; "but never mind about compliments for dead and gone fogies."
"And what of the fogies of this generation?" inquired ready Dick.
"The same--never mind."
"But come, we must make hay while the sun shines. In with you, you two girls, into the cart," said Dick, which they did, Jenny helping Inna. Then up sprang the charioteer, Oscar beside him; crack went the whip, and off they drove like the wind.
That nutting expedition was like a fairy dream to London-reared Inna; the lads showed her a squirrel or two, a dormouse not yet gone to its winter snooze, in its mossy bed-chamber. A snake wriggled past them, which made her shudder; frogs and toads leaped here and there in dark places. Then, oh, the whir and whisper of the autumn wind among the trees! the lights and shadows! Oh, for the magic hand of her artist father to make them hers for ever in a picture for her bedroom! But the delight of a morning's nutting must come to an end--so did theirs; the sandwiches demolished--share and share, as Oscar put it--they bethought themselves of dinner and the road leading thereto, so once more they were on their backward way, and parting company.
"Good-bye, mademoiselle!" cried Dick, as Inna stood at Oscar's side, after she had kissed Jenny, and the two had vowed a girls' eternal friendship. Then away went the donkey and cart, and our young people hastened home, just in time for dinner. A meal silent as breakfast was dinner, so far as they were concerned, for Mr. Barlow and the doctor kept a learned conversation high above their heads all the time--so Oscar said; and after it was over the boy vanished, nobody knew where. As for Inna, she roamed in the orchard all the afternoon in a dream of beauty, eating rosy apples, followed by tea--she and Mr. Barlow alone--she making the toast and managing the urn: a living proof of what can be done by trying, so the surgeon told her. Then he and the doctor went out, and Inna crept out to the kitchen, to wonder with Mrs. Grant where Oscar was, and what was keeping him.
"No good, Miss Inna; that boy'll go to the dogs if somebody don't take him in hand. You try, dearie, what you can do with him," said the housekeeper.
"I!" cried astonished Inna. She try what she could do with a big boy like Oscar!
"But hark! that's the fire-bell; there must be a fire somewhere," said Mrs. Grant, and out she went, with her apron over her head, to listen at the back gates.
Inna, with no apron over her head, stole out to keep her company.
"Oh my!" said Mrs. Grant to shivering Inna. "I wish Master Oscar was at home. I'm thinking he's a finger in the pie."
Ah! there was the fire, sure enough; it was a flare and a flame against the darkening sky.
"What's alight?" inquired Mrs. Grant of a man who went hurrying by.
"Poor Jackson's little farm; they say 'tis going like tinder, and he's half crazed," came back to them as the man ran on.
"Oh dear! that boy, what he'll have to answer for!" cried the housekeeper.
"But we're not sure 'tis his work," said sensible Inna.
"No, dear; but there's seldom any mischief going that he don't help in the brewing of."
Inna was silent, watching the red glare of the fire mounting heavenwards.
CHAPTER IV.
OSCAR'S BURNT ARM--BLACK HOLE.
"You see, dearie," went on the housekeeper, "he's playing truant these two days, and I don't like to bother the doctor, and get him into trouble. I hide what I can, in pity for his friendlessness."
"Hasn't he anybody but Uncle Jonathan?" inquired Inna.
"No, dearie; father and mother both dead, leaving him not a penny. 'Twould have been a sad life but for master, as I tell him; but I think that sets him more against the right than ever."
"Suppose you weren't to tell him, but ask him to do his studies, and--and right things, for love