Jack, peering about. "Perhaps you would not mind cook's having a chance?"
"It may be cook," I say, brightening up; "I heard James call her 'an old flirt' the other day, and she was so pleased."
"I should say it was cook," says Jack, grinning, "for one man would not be of much use in that quarter; perhaps if they all stood in a circle they might be able to clasp her charms. No, it's not cook, it's somebody or other in the school-room under, for I just saw one beast deliberately kiss his hand towards it. I'm going down to see who is there."
"Wait a minute for me," I say, furling an Elijah-like mantle around me, and so equipped, go down the stairs with him. We go into the school-room, but there is nothing there; nothing, that is to say, but Alice and Milly, who are sitting by the window in their white gowns. We retire and walk slowly up-stairs; half-way Jack stops short and looks at me. "It's not cook," he says deliberately, "and it's not Tabitha, nor Balaam's Ass, it's Alice."
Alice! I stand staring at him. "Are you mad?" I ask at last.
"No," he says, walking on, "but I'm disgusted. To think that those impudent———" the remainder of his speech is lost in a mutter. He is very young, but he has in him the germ of that dislike (so tenacious in the breasts of all Englishmen), that every brother, husband, or father has, to having his womankind looked upon too familiarly or too nearly by any stranger.
"What a row there will be when papa comes!" I say, drawing a deep breath.
"Serve her right, too," says Jack, as he vanishes into his bedroom, and I retire to bed with a troubled mind and a resolve to give my pretty sister a friendly warning to-morrow. Finding my opportunity, I put my arm round her neck, and, looking into her fresh face, that is not, I hope,
