Excerpt
Chapter One. Auntie and her Darling.
“Don’t eat too much marmalade, Sydney dear. It may make you bilious.”
“Oh, no, auntie dear, I’ll be careful.”
“You have a great deal of butter on your bread, dear?”
“Yes, auntie; that’s the beauty of it Miller says—”
“Who is Miller, Syd dear?”
“Our chemistry chap at Loamborough. He shows us how when you mix acids and alkalis together they form new combinations which go off in gas.”
“Indeed, dear! Your studies must be very interesting.”
“Oh, they are, auntie—awfly. That’s how it is with the marmalade and the fresh butter—this is real fresh butter, isn’t it?”
“Of course, dear. Whatever did you think it was?”
“Dab, aunt dear. Margarine. That wouldn’t do, of course; but the marmalade’s nearly all sugar—that’s carbon—and the butters all carbon, too; and then there’s a lot of acid in the oranges, and it all combines, and one kills the other and does you good. It never hurts me. Shall I give you some game pie, auntie?”
“Thank you, no, my dear, but you may pass me the dry toast. Thanks. Pass your cup, my child.”
Sydney Smithers, who, to use his own term, had been “going in” deeply for the marmalade, went backwards in his arrangement of the breakfast comestibles, and helped himself liberally to the game pie, especially the gelatinous portion, glancing once at the pale, handsome, sedate-looking lady presiding at the head of the table ready to meet his eyes and bestow a smile upon the dear child, her nephew, who made the Denes his home, when he was not at Loamborough spending his last terms before commencing a college career.
“Such a dear, sweet boy,” Lady Lisle often said to herself, as she beamed upon him blandly with thirty-five-year-old eyes, and idolised him, as she had no children of her own, and he was her own special training.
“At it again,” said the boy to himself, as he glanced at the lady furtively; “more letters. Lady doctors, lady barristers. Blest if I don’t think she means to go in for a lady parson! More meetings to go to, auntie dear?” he said aloud.
“Yes, my darling,” replied the lady, with a sigh and another affectionate beam upon the plump-looking darling intent upon the game pie. “The calls made upon my time are rather heavy. By and by, when you have grown up, I hope you will be able to help me.”
“Why, of course I will, auntie. Didn’t I want to write that answer for you yesterday?”
“Um—er—yes, my dear; but we must wait a little first. Your writing is not quite what I should like to see.”
“No, auntie; it is a bit shaky yet. We don’t go in for writing much at Loamborough; we leave that to the Board School cads.”
“And I should like you to be a little more careful over your spelling.”
“Oh, Mullins, M.A., says that’ll all come right, auntie, when we’ve quite done with our classics.”
“I hope so, my darling, and then you shall be my private secretary. I did hope at one time that I should win over your uncle to a love for my pursuits....