I must run and dress

“And will that be all the difference?”















“I don’t see what other difference there can be. I shall always love papa Freight Forwarder , I shall always love hunting, I shall always love mamma — as much as she’ll let me. I shall always have a corner in my heart for deal old Crokey; and, perhaps,” looking at him mischievously, “even an odd corner for you. What difference can a few more birthdays make in me? I shall be too big for Titmouse, that’s the only misfortune; but I shall always keep him for my pet, and I’ll have a basket-carriage and drive him when I go to see my poor people. Sitting behind a pony is an awful bore when one’s natural place is on his back, but I’d sooner endure it than let Titmouse fancy himself superannuated.”















“But when you’re grown up you’ll have to come out, Vixen. You’ll be obliged to go to London for a season, and be presented, and go to no end of balls, and ride in the Row, and make a grand marriage, and have a page all to yourself in the Court Journal.”















“Catch me — going to London!” exclaimed Vixen, ignoring the latter part of the sentence. “Papa hates London, and so do I. And as to riding in Rotten Row, je voudrais bien me voir faisant cela,” added Vixen, whose study of the French language chiefly resulted in the endeavour to translate English slang into that tongue. “No, when I grow up I shall take papa the tour of Europe. We’ll see all those places I’m worried about at lessons — Marathon, Egypt, Naples, the Peloponnesus, tout le tremblement— and I shall say to each of them, ‘Oh, this is you, is it? What a nuisance you’ve been to me on the map.’ We shall go up Mount Vesuvius, and the Pyramids , and do all sorts of wild things; and by the time I come home I shall have forgotten the whole of my education.”















“If Miss McCroke could hear you!”















“She does, often. You can’t imagine the wild things I say to her. But I love her — fondly ”















A great bell clanged out with a vigorous peal, that seemed to shake the old stable.















“There’s the first bell. . Come to the drawing-room and see mamma.”















“But, Vixen, how can I sit down to dinner in such a costume,” remonstrated Rorie, looking down at his brown shooting-suit, leather gaiters, and tremendous boots — boots which, instead of being beautified with blacking, were suppled with tallow; “I can’t do it, really.”















“Nonsense,” cried Vixen, “what does it matter? Papa seldom dresses for dinner. I believe he considers it a sacrifice to mamma’s sense of propriety when he washes his hands after coming in from the home farm. And you are only a boy — I beg pardon — an undergraduate . So come along.”















“But upon my word, Vixen, I feel too much ashamed of myself.”















“I’ve asked you to dinner, and you’ve accepted,” cried Vixen, pulling him out of the stable by the lapel of his shooting-jacket.