Meta still stood before the mirror, trying the effect of the amber buckle. “I don’t understand a word you’ve been saying,” she confessed. “I’m afraid you’re talking through your hat, Elizabeth. But, come on. Let’s go down now—I’m ready, since you think my rags will do.” And we proceeded to the drawing-room, where we found Aunt Adelaide and a number of guests already assembled. Geof did not appear till dinner was announced. He sat next me, and after an unenthusiastic greeting began upon the oysters. It was evident he was in one of his moods. “How’s hockey coming on, Geof?” I asked, under cover of the general conversation. “It’s not coming on at all,” returned Geof, glumly. “Probably shan’t play any more this season.” “What!” I replied, for Geof is captain of his school team, a crack player, fast, and wonderfully clever. “Not even the Lakeville match? I thought you had it all arranged!” “So we have,” muttered Geof, crumbling a bit of bread between his fingers. “The match’ll come off, all right;—under a different captain, that’s all.” “Oh, Geoffrey!” I said; for I saw by his face and the nervous movements of his hand how deeply the matter cut. “What has happened? You’re not in trouble again at school?” “I’d get on all right at school,” returned Geof, sullenly, “if only they’d stop nagging at home. It seems the Governor’s not pleased with my reports,—one can’t especially blame him for that,—and the ultimatum’s gone forth that I am to give up athletics,—my place on the team and all. He’s put up to it, of course. I’m sharp enough to know that.” “But, Geoffrey,” I said, “if scholarship is the only difficulty, why don’t you buckle down and study? Aunt Adelaide is really anxious about you. Her motives are good,—and, after all, the matter rests in your own hands,—it isn’t hockey, as _hockey_, that is objected to. You know that.” Geof turned from me. I saw that I would receive no further answer; and yet I felt sorry for the poor fellow, stubborn and headstrong as I know him to be. When we returned to the drawing-room, Meta, Geof, and I retired to a window-recess, where we felt ourselves screened from observation. “Mamma’s evenings are so dull,” Meta began, plaintively. “One puts on one’s best clothes, and then nothing happens at all! Seventeen is a hateful age anyway, it seems to me. One is not grown up, and yet one is no longer a kid. Fancy, Elizabeth! mamma says I am not to come out till I am twenty! Did you ever hear anything so unjust? All this talk about education makes me tired.” “_Much_ you have to complain of,” jeered Geof;—“a fudge party every other week, and girls so thick about the house one can’t move without stepping on ’em!” “Oh, I’m not trying to infringe your patent,” replied Meta, smartly. “Did you know, Elizabeth, that Geof has taken out a patent on martyrdom, since he’s been forbidden athletics? He has even got to give up his beloved hockey. It’s a national misfortune, let me tell you.”