This they had felt intuitively, and with his
precise habits and nicety of dress had caused him to be dubbed "the dandy."
Another member of the Gurney household must also be mentioned, for Hugh
McNeil belonged to the family almost as much as Lancy himself, seeing that
he had been cared for by Mrs. Gurney before Lancy was born. He was the son
of a strange marriage, a marriage that had turned out disastrously. His
father had been valet to Mr. Gurney's eldest brother, and, while attending
his master in Paris, had fallen in love with a pretty French waitress, and
secretly married her. On returning to England with his master, the French
wife followed him and revealed the marriage, and this so enraged McNeil's
master that he discharged him on the spot. Whereupon McNeil, after securing
a comfortable lodging for his wife, left for Australia, intending to send
for her as soon as he obtained permanent employment. Before he had done so,
the French wife died in giving birth to little Hugh; and the matter coming
to the knowledge of Mrs. Gurney, she had pitied the motherless babe and had
him placed in a comfortable home.
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