However, nothing could be more snug and merry than the mother and daughter when left together, for they were like two sisters and suited one another perfectly. Babie was disappointed that London would not look emptier even in the fashionable squares, which she insisted on exploring in search of solitude. They made little gay outings in a joyous spirit of adventure, getting up early and going by train to some little station, with an adjacent expanse of wood or heather, whence they came home with their luncheon basket full of flowers, wherewith to gladden Mrs. Lucas's eyes, and those of Mother Carey's district. They prepared their surprises too. Several hopelessly dingy panels were painted black and adorned with stately lilies and irises, with proud reed-maces, and twining honeysuckle, and bryony, fluttered over by dragon-flies and butterflies, from the brush of mother and daughter. The stores from Belforest further supplied hangings for brackets, and coverings for cushions, under the dainty fingers of the Infanta, who had far more of the household fairy about her than had her mother, perhaps from having grown up in a home instead of a school, and besides, from being bent on having the old house a delightsome place.
Indeed her mother was really happier than for many years, for the sense of failing in her husband's charge had left her since she had seen Jock by his own free will on the road to the quest, and likely also to fulfil the moral, as well as the scientific, conditions attached to it. She did feel as if her dream was being realised and the golden statues becoming warmed into life, and though her heart ached for Janet, she still hoped for her. So, with a mother's unfailing faith, she believed in Allen's dawning future even while another sense within her marvelled, as she copied, at the acceptance of "The Single Eye." But then, was it not well-known that loving eyes see the most faults, and was not an editor the best judge of popularity?
She had her scheme too. She had taken lessons some years ago at Rome in her old art of modelling, and knew her eye and taste had improved in the galleries. She had once or twice amused the household by figures executed by her dexterous fingers in pastry or in butter; and in the empty house, in her old studio, amid remnants of Bobus's museum, she set to work on a design that had long been in her mind asking her to bring it into being.
Thus the tete-a-tete was so successful that people's pity was highly diverting, and the vacation was almost too brief, though when the young men began to return, it was a wonder how existence could have been so agreeable without them.
Jock was first, having come home ten days sooner than his friends were willing to part with him, determined if he found his ladies looking pale to drag them out of town, if only to Ramsgate.
They met him in a glow of animation, and Babie hardly gave him time to lay down his basket of ferns from the dale, and flowers from the garden, before she threw open the folding doors to the back drawing- room.
"Why, mother, who sent you that group? Why do you laugh? Did Grinstead lend it to Babie to copy? Young Astyanax, isn't it? And, I say! Andromache is just like Jessie. I say! Mother Carey didn't do it. Well! She is an astonishing little mother and no mistake. The moulding of it! Our anatomical professor might lecture on Hector's arm."
"Ah! I, haven't been a surgeon's wife for nothing. Your father put me through a course of arms and legs."
"And we borrowed a baby," said Babie. "Mrs. Jones, our old groom's wife, who lives in the Mews, was only too happy to bring it, and when it was shy, it clung beautifully."
"Then the helmet."
"That was out of the British Museum."
"Has Grinstead seen it?"
"No, I kept it for my own public first."
"What will you do with it? Put it into the Royal Academy?"
"No, it is not big enough. I thought of offering it to the Works that used to take my things in the old Folly days. They might do it in terra cotta, or Parian."
"Too good for a toy material like that," said Jock. "Get some good opinion before you part with it, mother. I wish we could keep it. I'm proud of my Mother Carey."
Allen, who came home next, only sighed at the cruel necessity of selling such a work. He was in deplorable spirits, for Gilbert Gould was superintending the refitting of a beautiful steam yacht, in which Miss Menella meant to sail to the West Indies, with her uncle and aunt.
"I knew she would! I knew she would," softly said Babie.
That did not console Allen, and his silence and cynicism about his hosts gave the impression that he had outstayed his welcome, since he had neither wealth, nor the social brilliance or subservience that might have supplied its place. He had scarcely energy to thank his mother for her faultless transcription of "The Single Eye," and only just exerted himself to direct the neat roll of MS. to the Editor.
The next day a note came for him.
"Mother what _have_ you done?" he exclaimed. "What _did_ you send to the 'Weathercock'?"
"'The Single Eye.' What? Not rejected?"
"See there!"
"DEAR MR. BROWNLOW,-I am afraid there has been some mistake. The story I wished for is not this one, but another in the same MS. Magazine; a charming little history of a boy's capture by, and escape from, the Moorish corsairs. Can you let me have it by Tuesday? I am very sorry to have given so much trouble, but 'The Single Eye' will not suit my purpose at all."
"What does she mean?" demanded Allen.
"I see! It is a story of the children's! 'Marco's Felucca.' I looked at it while I was copying, and thought how pretty it was. And now I remember there were some pencil-marks!"
"Well, it will please the children," graciously said Allen. "I am not sorry; I did not wish to make my debut in a second-rate serial like that, and now I am quit of it. She is quite right. It is not her style of thing."
But Allen did not remember that he had spent the £15 beforehand, so as to make it £25, and this made it fortunate that his mother's group had been purchased by the porcelain works, and another pair ordered.
Thus she could freely leave their gains to Armine and Babie, for the latter declared the sum was alike due to both, since if she had the readiest wit, her brother had the most discrimination, and the best choice of language. The story was only signed A. B., and their mother made a point of the authorship being kept a secret; but little notices of the story in the papers highly gratified the young authors.
Armine, who had returned from a round of visits to St. Cradocke's, Fordham, Kenminster, and Woodside, confirmed the report of Elvira's intended voyage; but till the yacht was ready, the party had gone abroad, leaving the management of the farm, and agency of the estate, to a very worthy man named Whiteside, who had long been a suitor to Mary Gould, and whom she was at last allowed to marry. He had at once made the Kencroft party free of the park and gardens, and indeed John and Armine came laden with gifts in poultry, fruit, and flowers from the dependants on the estate to Mrs. Brownlow.
Armine really looked quite healthy, nothing remaining of his former ethereal air, but a certain expansiveness of brow and dreaminess of eye.
He greatly scrupled at halving the £15 when it was paid, but Barbara insisted that he must take his share, and he then said-
"After all it does not signify, for we can do things together with it, as we have always done."
"What things?"
"Well, I am afraid I do want a few books."
"So do I, terribly."
"And there are some Christmas gifts I want to send to Woodside."
"Woodside! oh!"
"And wouldn't it be pleasant to put the choir at the iron Church into surplices and cassocks for Christmas?"
"Oh, Armie, I do think we might have a little fun out of our own money."
"What fun do you mean?" said Armine.
"I want to subscribe to Rolandi's, and to take in the 'Contemporary,' and to have one real good Christmas party with tableaux vivants, and charades. Mother says we can't make it a mere surprise party, for people must have real food, and I think it would be more pleasure to all of us than presents and knicknacks."