elt down obediently and tugged at the muddy boots, though it was
a task she disliked as much as she could dislike anything. She was
rewarded by a gruff "Thank you," and when Geoff came down again in dry
clothes, to find the table neatly prepared, and his little sister ready
to pour out his tea, he did condescend to say that she was a good child!
But even though his toast was hot and crisp, and his egg boiled to
perfection, Geoff's pleasanter mood did not last long. He had a good
many lessons to do that evening, and they were lessons he disliked.
Vicky sat patiently, doing her best to help him till her bedtime came,
and he had barely finished when Frances brought a message that he was to
come upstairs--mamma said he was not to work any longer.

"You have finished, surely, Geoff?" she said, when he entered the
drawing-room.

"If I had finished, I would have come up sooner. You don't suppose I
stay down there grinding away to please myself, do you?" replied the
boy, rudely.

"Geoff!" exclaimed his sisters, unwisely, perhaps.

He turned upon them.

"I've not come to have you preaching at me. Mamma, will you speak to
them?" he burst out. "I hate this life--nothing but fault-finding as
soon as I show my face. I wish I were out of it, I do! I'd rather be the
poorest ploughboy in the country than lead this miserable life in this
hateful London."

[Illustration: VICKY ... TUGGED AT THE MUDDY BOOTS.]

He said the last words loudly, almost shouting them, indeed. To do him
justice, it was not often his temper got so completely the better of
him. The noise he was making had prevented him and the others from
hearing the bell ring--prevented them, too, from hearing, a moment or
two later, a short colloquy on the stairs between Harvey and a
new-comer.

"Thank you," said the latter; "I don't want you to announce me. I'll do
it myself."

Geoff had left the door open.

"Yes," he was just repeating, even more loudly than before, "I hate this
life, I do. I am grinding at lessons from morning to night, and when I
come home this is the way you treat me. I----"

But a voice behind him made him start.

"Hoot-toot, young man," it said. "Hoot-toot, hoot-toot! Come, I say,
this sort of thing will never do. And ladies present! Hoot----"

But the "toot" was drowned in a scream from Mrs. Tudor.

"Uncle, dear uncle, is it you? Can it be you yourself? Oh, Geoff, Geoff!
he is not often such a foolish boy, uncle, believe me. Oh, how--ho