The afternoon seemed to pass very slowly and only when the Duchess, Pepita, and Jeanie were already seated at the teatable did the guns return from their day’s sport.
Rory came rushing into the room not in the least tired after what the older men said had been quite a strenuous walk on the moors.
Full of excitement he flung his arms round Pepita.
“Tomorrow I am going shooting with Hector and the keeper, Aunt Pepita,” he cried. “Grandpapa said that he has a gun for me, and he will have the first bird I shoot stuffed so that I can keep it for ever and ever!”
He was so thrilled that his words seemed to fall over one another and Pepita, holding him close, felt that the Duke would not part with him easily.
At the same time, as she looked at him at the end of
the table, stern, determined a
