"It will only be another disappointment," she said to herself, with a sigh. "Poor father, poor dear father! And he works so hard, too! Something must be done. We are getting poorer and poorer, and Noel has such an appetite. What is the use of living in our own house, and pretending that we are well off and respectable and all that, and we are in debt to the butcher and the coal-merchant; and it is not father's fault, for he does all he can, and it is only because he loves us so that he hates us to work." And then she sat down on the couch as though she were suddenly tired, and stared dumbly at the vine-leaves twinkling in the sunshine; and her lips were closed firmly on each other, as though she had arrived at some sudden resolution. CHAPTER II. "MONSIEUR BLACKIE." "It would be argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest forever." "A Corinthian, a lad of metal, a good boy."--_King Henry IV._ A shrill, ear-piercing series of whistles, of a peculiarly excruciating description, broke in upon Waveney's meditation. She shook herself, frowned, ran her fingers through her short, curly hair, thereby causing it to wave more wildly than ever--then ran downstairs. The ground floor room corresponded with the one above--only the folding doors had not been removed, and over them, in a schoolboy's round hand, roughly painted in red and gold, was "Noel Ward, His Study," with a pleasing and serpentine ornamentation embellishing the inscription. In vain had Mollie, with tears in her eyes, implored her father to obliterate the unsightly record. An amused shake of the head only answered her. "Leave it alone," he would say. "It is only a nursery legend, and does no harm--when Noel evolves another original idea it will be time to erase it." And so "Noel Ward, His Study," still sprawled in ungainly characters over the lintel. As Waveney entered the room with rather an offended air, she saw the youthful student standing in the doorway. He was a tall, thin stripling of fifteen--but looked older, perhaps because he wore spectacles and had classical, well-cut features, and an odd trick of projecting his chin and lifting his head as though he were always on the look-out for celestial objects. But notwithstanding this eccentricity and a cracked and somewhat high-pitched voice, the heir of the Wards was certainly a goodly youth. "Well, old Storm and Stress," he observed, with a derisive grin, as he balanced himself skilfully on his heels between the folding-doors, "so the pibroch roused you?" "Pibroch!" returned his sister, wrathfully. "How often have I told you, you bad boy, that you are not to make this horrible din. Caterwauling is music compared to it, or even a bagpipe out of tune."