come out again. The rain was a steady downpour in the slackened wind, but his argument that they were not made of paper carried weight.

They returned, drenched indeed, but with a[Pg 37] satisfactory report of themselves and the birds, to find Mr. Francis performing very contentedly on his flute before the hall fire. But he jumped up briskly as they appeared.

[Pg 37]

"Dear boys, how wet you are!" he cried. "Of course, you will change your clothes at once, will you not? and I should recommend a glass of hot whisky and water. Shall I ring the bell? I told Templeton to see that there was abundance of hot water for your baths."

This incessant solicitude of his uncle, however clearly arising from affection, was on the way to get on Harry's nerves and arouse opposition. At any rate, the suggestion that he should guard against a chill predisposed him not to be in any hurry to go upstairs.

"Oh, tea first," he said, not meaning it; "one can change afterward.—Are you going now, Geoff? Ring the bell as you pass, will you?"

A positive cloud dimmed the brightness of Mr. Francis's face.

"Dear boy, you are being horribly imprudent," he said; "do let me persuade you to change at once."

This drove determination home. Harry was unpleasantly conscious of the clinging flabbiness of soaking clothes, but had their touch shaken him with an ague it would not have moved him from his chair. He intended to do that which he chose to do.

"Oh, I'm all right, Uncle Francis," he said. "I never catch cold."

[Pg 38]

[Pg 38]

Tea came, and Harry ate and drank with studied leisure, and conversed politely to his uncle. Already he felt the premonitory prickling of the skin which precedes a chill, but it was nearly half an hour before he lounged upstairs. He did not intend to be fussed over and treated like a child; the advice to go and change had been so obviously sensible that it should never have been offered, and to the contrariness of youth was impossible to accept. Thus the well-meant but ill-timed counsel drove him into an opposite.

Again, after dinner, the evening was melodious with the breathings of Mr. Francis's flute, but the childlike pleasure which the 

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