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"There'll be something else for to-morrow," he answered without pausing.

"Tea'll be ready at six," said Dolly, raising her voice a little.

"All right!" said he, and sped away.

Dolly looked after him, so full of vexation that she did not know what to do. Not her father, and in his place this boy! This boy to go with them on the journey; to be one of the party; to be always on hand; for he could not be relegated to the place of a servant or a courier. And Dolly wanted her father, and was sure that the expense of a fourth person might have been spared. The worst fear of all she would not look at; it was possible that they were still to be three, and her father, the fourth, left out. However, for the present the matter in hand was action; she must tell her mother about this new arrival before she met him at supper. Dolly went in.

"Your father not coming?" said Mrs. Copley when she had heard Dolly's report. "Then we have nothing to wait for, and we can get right off. I do want to see your father out of that miserable office once!"

"Well, he promised me, mother," said Dolly, sighing.

"Can we go to-morrow?"

"No, mother; there are too many last things to do. Next day we will."

"Why can't we go and leave this young man to finish up after us?"

"He could not do it, mother; and we must let father know, besides."

Rupert came back in due time and was presented to Mrs. Copley; but Mrs.

Copley did not admire his looks, and the supper-table party was very silent. The silence became unbearable to the new-comer; and though he was not without a certain shyness in Dolly's presence, it became at last easier to speak than to go on eating and not speaking.

"Plenty of shootin' round about here, I s'pose," he remarked. "I heard the guns going."

"The preserves of Brierley are very full of game," Dolly answered; "and there are some friends of Lord Brierley staying at the house."

"I engaged a waggon," Rupert went on. "It'll be here at one, sharp."

"I ought to have sent a word to the post-office, for father, when you went to the village; but I did not think till it was too late."

"I did that," said Rupert.

"Sent a word to father?"

"All right. Told him you'd be up on Wednesday."

"Oh, thank you. That was very thoughtful."

"You're from America," said Mrs. Copley.

"Should think I was!"

"Whereabouts? where from, I mean?"

"About two miles from your place--Ortonville is the spot. My native."

"What made you come over here?"

"Well, I s'pose it would be as true as anything to say, Mr. Copley made me come."

"What for?"

"Well, I guess it was kindness. Most likely."

"Kindness!" echoed Mrs. Copley. "Poor kindness, I call it, to take a man, or a boy, or any one else, away from his natural home. Haven't you found it so? Don't you wish you were back there again?"

"Well," said Rupert with a little slowness, and a twinkle in his eye at the same time,--"I just don't; if I'm to tell the truth."

"It is incomprehensible to me!" returned the lady. "Why, what do you find here, that you would not have had at home?"

"England, for one thing," said the young man with a smile.

"England! Of course you would not have had England at home; but isn't America better?"

"I think it is."

"Then what do you gain by exchanging one for the other?" said Mrs.

Copley with heat.

"That exchange ain't made yet. I calculate to go back, when I have got all I want on this side."

"And what do you want? Money, I suppose. Everything is for money, with everybody. Country, and family, and the ease of life, and the pleasure of being together--nothing matters, if only one may get money! I don't know but savages have the best of it. At least they don't live for money."

Mrs. Copley forgot at the moment that she was wishing her daughter to marry for money.

"I counsel you, young man," she began again. "Money won't buy everything."

He laughed good-humouredly. "Can't buy much without it," he said, with that shrewd twinkle in his eye.

"And what can Mr. Copley do for you, I should like to know?" she went on impatiently.

"He's put me in a likely way," said Rupert. "I am very much beholden to Mr. Copley. But the best thing he has done for me is this--by a long jump."

"_This?_ What?"

"Letting me go along this journey. I do _not_ think money is the very best of all things," the young man said with some spirit.

"Letting you---- Do you mean that you are going to Venice in our party?"

"If it is Venice you are going to."

Silence fell. Mrs. Copley pondered the news in some consternation. To Dolly it was not news, and she did not mean it should be fact, if she could help it.

"Perhaps you have business in Venice?" Mrs. Copley at length ventured.

"I hope it'll turn out so," said Rupert. "Mr. Copley said I might have the pleasure of taking care of you. I should enjoy that, I guess, more than making money."

"Good gracious!" was all the speech Mrs. Copley was capable of. She sat and looked at the young man. So, furtively, did Dolly. He was enjoying his supper; yes, and the prospect too; for a slight flush had risen to his face. It was not a symmetrical face, but honesty was written in every line of it.

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