I think they were all glad at breakfast-time to hear of Jack Hawthorne’s promised advent. By “all” I mean my mother and Elsie and Bob. Our cousin Solomon Barker looked anything but overjoyed when I made the announcement in breathless triumph. I never thought of it before, but perhaps that young man is getting fond of Elsie, and is afraid of a rival; otherwise I don’t see why such a simple thing should have caused him to push away his egg, and declare that he had done famously, in an aggressive manner which at once threw doubt upon his proposition. Grace Maberly, Elsie’s friend, seemed quietly contented, as is her wont. As for me, I was in a riotous state of delight. Jack and I had been children together. He was like an elder brother to me until he became a cadet and left us. How often Bob and he had climbed old Brown’s apple-trees, while I stood beneath and collected the spoil in my little white pinafore! There was hardly a scrape or adventure which I could remember in which Jack did not figure as a prominent character. But he was “Lieutenant” Hawthorne now, had been through the Afghan War, and was, as Bob said, “quite the warrior.” Whatever would he look like? Somehow the “warrior” had conjured up an idea of Jack in full armor with plumes on his head, thirsting for blood, and hewing at somebody with an enormous sword. After doing that sort of thing I was afraid he would never descend to romps and charades and the other stock amusements of Hatherley House. Cousin Sol was certainly out of spirits during the next few days. He could be hardly persuaded to make a fourth at lawn-tennis, but showed an extraordinary love of solitude and strong tobacco. We used to come across him in the most unexpected places, in the shrubbery and down by the river, on which occasions, if there was any possibility of avoiding us, he would gaze rigidly into the distance, and utterly ignore feminine shouts and the waving of parasols. It was certainly very rude of him. I got hold of him one evening before dinner, and drawing myself up to my full height of five feet four and a half inches, I proceeded to give him a piece of my mind, a process which Bob characterizes as the height of charity, since it consists in my giving away what I am most in need of myself. Cousin Sol was lounging in a rocking-chair with the _Times_ before him, gazing moodily over the top of it into the fire. I ranged up alongside and poured in my broadside. “We seem to have given you some offence, Mr. Barker,” I remarked, with lofty courtesy. “What do you mean, Nell?” asked my cousin, looking up at me in surprise. He had a very curious way of looking at me, had cousin Sol. “You appear to have dropped our acquaintance,” I remarked; and then suddenly descending from my heroics, “You _are_ stupid, Sol! What’s been the matter with you?” “Nothing, Nell. At least, nothing of any consequence. You know my medical examination is in two months, and I am reading for it.”