o people nor anything! the best thing for me
will just be to be sent to school." Here Geoff turned his back upon her
abruptly, forced thereto by the necessity of getting rid of those tears.
When he had thus relieved himself, and cleared his throat of the climbing
sorrow that threatened to shake his voice, he came back and stood once
more by her table. The great effort of swallowing down all that emotion
had made him pale, and left the strained look which the passage of a
sudden storm leaves both upon the human countenance and the sky. "They
say it's very jolly at Eton," he resumed suddenly, taking up with his
hot little nervous fingers Mrs. Warrender's piece of work.

But at this point Geoff's confidences were interrupted by the entrance
of visitors, who not only meant to make themselves agreeable to Mrs.
Warrender on her first arrival at Highcombe, but who were very eager to
find out all that they could about the marriage of Theo, if it really
was going to take place, and when, and everything about it. It added
immensely to the excitement, but little to the information acquired,
when in answer to the first question Mrs. Warrender indicated to her
visitors that the little boy standing at her side, and contemplating
them with his hands in his pockets, was little Lord Markland. "Oh, the
boy," they said under their breath, and stopped their questioning most
unwillingly, all but the elder lady, who got Mrs. Warrender into a
corner, and carried on the interrogatory. Was she quite pleased? but of
course she was pleased. The difference of age was so little that it did
not matter, and though the Markland family were known not to be rich,
yet to be sure it was a very nice position. And such a fine character,
not a woman that was very popular, but quite above criticism. "There
never was a whisper against her--oh, never a whisper! and that is a
great thing to say." Geoff did not hear, and probably would not have
understood, these comments. He still stood by the work-table, taking the
reels of silk out of their places and putting them back again with the
gravity of a man who has something very important in hand. He seemed
altogether absorbed in this simple occupation, bending over it with
eyebrows contracted over his eyes, and every sign of earnestness. "What a
curious thing for a boy to take pleasure in: but I suppose being always
with his mother has rather spoiled him. It will be so good for the child
to have a man in the house,"