An English Squire — Inside the Classic

She was very untidily though handsomely dressed, and had the awkwardness of a girl too big for her age; but as she stood leaning back against the oak table, there was such vigour and life in her strong young limbs as to give them a kind of grace. She had a low voice of refined quality, but she spoke with a strong north-country accent, as did her father. In the brothers it was much modified by their southern schooling. The twin brother, Robert, retained, however, a good deal of it. He was a heavier, less handsome likeness of her, and might have been described as a fine lad or a great lout, according to the prepossessions of the speaker. The next brother, John, or, as he was usually called, Jack, had, at nineteen, hardly yet outgrown the same ungainliness of manner; but his height, and the strength trained by many an athletic struggle, could not fail to be striking; and though he had something of the same sullen straightness of brow, the eyes beneath were thoughtful and keen. There was no lack of mental power in Jack's grave young face, and he was a formidable opponent to his schoolfellows in contests of brain as well as of muscle.

Cheriton, except that his brows arched a little, so that he could not attain to the perfection of the family frown, and that he was an inch or two shorter and much slighter, was so like Jack that when he was grave and silent his brighter colouring and the moustaches to which he had attained were, at first sight, the chief points of difference between them. But then Jack's face to-day would be his face to-morrow, while Cheriton's expression varied with almost every word he spoke, so that he was sometimes said to be the image of his father, sometimes to be the one Lester who was like nobody but himself; while, now and then old friends wondered how this handsome young man came to have such a look of the mother, who had been no beauty, but only a high-minded and cultivated woman. He was his father's favourite, and somehow his brothers were not jealous of the preference. "Cherry," as they called him, was the family oracle, though he risked his place now and then when his utterances were not in accordance with the prevailing sentiment.

Mr Lester's expression was now dark enough to indicate annoyance of no common kind; but it did not take much to make him look cross, and if his sons and daughter had not known that there was an unusual speck on the family horizon, they would have surmised that the keepers were in disgrace, the newspaper late in arriving, or that they themselves had unwittingly transgressed.

As it was they were all silent, though Cheriton looked up with a question in his eyes, and the twins glanced at each other.

"I have had a letter from--your brother; he has started on his journey, and will be here in a day or two."

No one spoke for a moment, and then Cheriton said,--

"Well, father, I shall be very glad to see him. It's a good time for him to come, and I hope we shall be able to make it pleasant for him."

"Pleasant for _him_," growled Bob.

"It won't be at all pleasant for _us_," said his sister. "Fancy a foreign fellow interfering in all our concerns. And Granny says he's sure to set us a bad example."

"Ay," said the father, "you lads needn't be in too great a hurry to get up an intimacy."

"There's not much fear of that," said Cheriton.

"Ah, my boy," said Mr Lester, turning to him, "you take it very well; but it's hard on you; no one knows better than I do."

"As for me," said Cheriton, with a shade of the characteristic family gruffness in his much pleasanter voice, "you know it has always been my wish that he should come, and why should we set ourselves against it?"

"He ought to have come sooner," said Jack.

"That's no affair of yours, Jack," said his father sharply. "Don't be so ready with your comments. He is coming now, and--and I'll hear no more grumbling. I'm hanged if I know what we are all to make of him, though," he muttered as he left the hall.

"He'd better not interfere with me," said Bob. "I shall take no notice of him."

"Poor fellow!" said Cheriton satirically. "I won't kiss him, I declare," cried his sister.