"Hush, Neil, or I'll tell your father; and look where you are standin', with your dirthy fate on the cushions. Come down directly, or I'll be afther helpin' ye!" said Jennie; whereupon Neil turned his attention to her, and a spirited battle ensued, in which Robin also took part, and which was only brought to an end by the sound of the train in the distance.
"There's the whistle! Out with ye, or ye'll not be in time to grate yer uncle!" Jennie cried; and with a bound Neil was upon the ground, and rushing through the station, joined his mother, who with Grey was looking anxiously at the few passengers alighting from the train.
First came Lady Augusta Hardy, habited in the deepest of crape. Poor Teddie had died a few months before, and with her little son Rossiter, who was now the heir of Hardy Manor, she was spending the summer at home, and with her foreign airs and liveried servants brought from Dublin was creating quite a sensation to Allington. With a bow to the Jerrolds, who were among the few she condescended to notice, she passed on to where her coachman and footman waited for her, while Bessie ran hastily down the platform towards a tall, sickly looking man, who almost tottered as he walked, while a sudden pallor about his lips told how weak he was.
"Oh, Neil, I am so glad--and so sorry, too. I did not think you were like this," Bessie cried, as she took both his hands in hers, and, standing on tiptoe, kissed the quivering lips, which could not for a moment speak to her "You are very tired," she continued, as Grey came up and, after greeting the stranger cordially, offered him his arm.
"You are very tired from the voyage and the journey here, it is so hot and dusty; but you will rest now, our house is so cool and the air here so pure. There, let me help you, too."
And in her eagerness, Bessie passed her arm through Neil's, or rather put it around him, and thus supported, the sick man went slowly to the open carriage, where Jennie had the children with the exception of little Neil, who, finding himself overlooked, was cultivating the station master and telling him that the dark-looking man was his Uncle Neil from India, and that they were to have ice cream for dinner in honor of his arrival, and he was to go to the table and have two saucers full.
In her anxiety for her cousin, Bessie had forgotten her children, but at the sight of them she exclaimed: "Oh, Neil, look! Here are two of my babies, Robin and Bessie, and the boy over there throwing stones, is your namesake. I hope they will not trouble you--Robin and Bessie, I mean--for you and I are to go in the carriage with them, and Grey will take little Neil in the phaeton."