ess
of his excitement--"in case, Cousin Richard, mummy didn't quite take in
what you said at the beginning of luncheon--you did mean for really
that I was to come and stay here in the summer holidays, and that you'd
take me out, don't you know, and show me your horses?"

And to Honoria, glancing at them, there was a singular, and almost
tragic, comment on life in the likeness, yet unlikeness, of those two
faces.--The features almost identical, the same blue eyes, the two
heads alike in shape, each with the same close-fitted, bright-brown cap
of hair. But the boy's face flushed, without afterthought or
qualification of its eager happiness--the man's colourless, full of
reserve, almost alarmingly self-contained and still.

Yet, when the elder Richard's answer came, it was altogether gentle and
kindly.

"Yes, most distinctly _for really_, Dick," he said. "Let there be no
mistake about it. Let it be clearly understood I want to have you here
just as long, and just as often, as your mother and father will spare
you. I'll show you the horses, never fear, and let you ride them too."

"A--a--a real big one?"

"Just as big a one as you can straddle." Richard paused.--"And I'll
show you other things, if all goes well, which I'm beginning to
think--and perhaps you'll think so too some day--are more important
even than horses."

He put his hand under the boy's chin, tipped up the ruddy, beaming,
little face and kissed it.

"It's a compact," he said.--"Now cut along, old chap. Don't you see
you're keeping Miss St. Quentin waiting?"

Whereupon the small Richard started soberly enough, being slightly
impressed by something--he knew not quite what--only that it made him
feel awfully fond, somehow, of this newly discovered cousin and
namesake. But, about half-way down the room, that promise of a horse, a
thorough-bred, and just as big as he could straddle, swept all before
it, rendering his spirits uncontrollably explosive. So he made a wild
rush and flung himself headlong upon the waiting Honoria.

"Oh! you want to bear-fight, do you? Two can play at that game," she
cried, "you young rascal!"

Then without apparent effort, or diminution of her lazy grace, the
elder Richard saw her pick the boy up by his middle, and,
notwithstanding convulsive wrigglings on his part, throw him across her
shoulder and bear him bodily away through the lobby, into the hall, and
out of sight.

Hence it fell out that not until quite late that