Then amid Sibby's scoldings and assurances that the child would catch his death of cold, Bernard was borne upstairs again by Felix, who found Clement in the nursery comforting the little girls, and preventing them from following the example of their valiant pioneer. Felix, now thoroughly entering into the spirit of the joke, entertained for a moment the hope of entrapping Clement; but of course Bernard could not be silenced from his bold and rather doubtful proclamation, that 'The funny boy made Felix black his own face, and I wasn't afraid.'
'Naughty boy!' commented Stella. 'Poor Fee!'--and she reared up to kiss him, and stroke the cheeks that had suffered such an indignity.
'What! It was only a trick?' said Clement slowly, as if half mystified.
'Of course,' said Felix; 'could not you trust to that?'
'I don't know. Cathedrals are very lax, and it had a questionable name.'
'O Clem! if it had not been in you before, I should wish you had never gone to St. Matthew's. Come down now, don't let us disturb the little ones any longer.--Good-night, Angel; good-night, little Star; we'll not make a row to wake you again.'
Clement, in a severe mood, followed Felix downstairs; but some wonderful spirit of frolic was on all the young people that night--a reaction, perhaps, from the melancholy that had so long necessarily reigned in that house, for though the fun was less loud, it was quite as merry: a course of riddles was going on; and Clement, who really was used to a great deal of mirth among the staff of St. Matthew's, absolutely unbent, and gloried in showing that even more conundrums were known there than by the house of Harewood. He was not strong in guessing them; but then Will Harewood made such undaunted and extraordinary shots at everything proposed, that the spirit of repartee was fairly awakened, and Cherry's bright delicate wit began to play, so that no one knew how to believe in the lateness of the hour, and still less that this was the same house that grave Wilmet had left that morning.
'Poor dear little Cherry!' said Felix to Mr. Audley, after helping her upstairs, 'she is quite spent with laughing; indeed my jaws ache, and she is ready to cry, as if it had been unfeeling.'