"Was it anything like sailing down the river?" asked Sybil, as they all cl.u.s.tered round her.

"It was very sweet and beautiful," said the old lady kindly; then she kissed her two guests "good night," and said, "No; not so late," to her two nieces, when they pleaded to accompany them as far as the five-barred gate.

Jenny was really a guest at the farm for a few days, sleeping with Inna, but spending most of her time at the Owl's Nest.

It was just what Inna needed, with her pale cheeks and troubled heart.

"If I only knew _where_ Oscar was, I think I could bear it better," was her cry. But Dr. Willett had to bear his ifs and regrets in silence, as best he could, without change or comfort from anything or anybody, save the going out among his patients. His fine face grew very grave and sorrowful, his hair was whitening too, as the days glided on into weeks, and no tidings came of the missing boy.

Down the quiet shadowy drive from the Owl's Nest went the two little girls and their attendant. Inna little knew to what she was going, tripping along and talking to Jenny. Clear of the drive, their path home lay in the moonlight, and not far had they gone when a little wailing mew came to them from behind a hedge, and then a small white and black kitten emerged therefrom, and came and rubbed herself round Inna's feet.

She caught it up and fondled it, the knowing little pleader mewing such a pleased mew then, that you may be sure it went straight to the little girl's heart.

"Oh, if I might keep it as my very own!" she cried; "but I'm afraid that s.m.u.t wouldn't like it."

"I'm afraid Mrs. Grant wouldn't like it," said Mary, as a stronger objection.

"Take the kitten home and ask her," advised Jenny; "and if she says 'No,' you could but ask your uncle, and if he says 'Yes,' she wouldn't dare to say 'No.'"

"I don't think she would wish to say 'No' to anything that she thought would make uncle or me happy," mused Inna aloud, and in this happy confidence she hugged the foundling to her, and went on her way through the moonlight, just as if she was not going home to the unlooked-for, that which would stir her poor little heart to its centre.

How would she bear it?

CHAPTER IX.

OSCAR'S RETURN--THE MYSTERY CLEARED--ON THE TOR AGAIN.

How did Inna bear it?

As she bounded into the fire-lit kitchen, to prefer her request to Mrs.

Grant about her kitten, there sat Oscar by the fire, in his own especial chair, just as if he had sat there nightly for the last six weeks: save for this, that he had an ugly scar on his forehead scarcely healed, that his face was thin and wan, and that he wore somebody's clothes, not his own--those in which he had vanished.

"Oscar!" she cried, and sat down and wept over her joy as if it were a sorrow, like a very excited little maiden--that is how she bore her surprise. Mary knew nothing of his arrival; he had come after she had left to bring the little girls home. The poor kitten went flying somewhere, anywhere to be out of the way of such sobs and tears.

"Master--Dr. Willett," called the housekeeper from out of the open kitchen door, wondering what effect the sight of Oscar would have upon the two doctors, who had to bear the sight of so much.

"Yes--what is it?" came wandering back up the pa.s.sage. The speaker followed close behind, Mr. Barlow behind him. Oscar come back, Inna crying over it. Well, with the coming of the two doctors she soon dried her eyes and inquired for her kitten.

"Kitten, dear?" Mrs. Grant thought there was something a little wrong with her head still, just a cobweb not cleared away, because of her crying so, you know. Not so the doctor, for there came a piteous prolonged mew, and up scrambled the kitten, inside one of the legs of the doctor's trousers. She had missed her way, you see, but had chosen a friend next best to Inna.

"Well, you're no beauty," quoth the doctor, drawing her down from her hiding-place, and holding her on his arm to stroke her; "and you're nothing to cry over, lost or found."

Dr. Willett put her into Inna's arms, where the little thing nestled, as if she knew her rightful place already.

"I didn't cry over the kitten, uncle; I cried over Oscar," said the little girl.

Mr. Barlow had drawn Oscar from the room and himself stayed with him, to keep him there.

"Where is Oscar?--it isn't a dream, is it?" and Inna's eyes swept the room.

"Dream? no, my dear; he was here just now. Isn't it his rightful place?"

spoke the doctor drily.

"Yes, only--only----"

"Ah! yes, only you want to know where he has been, what he has been doing, and what right he had to come back in this matter-of-fact way, when you had been imagining all sorts of unlikely things about him; and so you cried over it, to give the whole thing the girl-like touch it lacked. Ha--ha!"

This was Mr. Barlow's speech, putting his head in at the kitchen door, to see how they were getting on.

"Yes, come in, both of you," said the doctor, that sorrowful gravity lifted from his face already.

"Well, my boy, you have taken a heavy weight from my heart and added years to my life by coming back," was what he said, drawing the lad to him, and laying his hand on his shoulder.

"Have you missed me so much, uncle?" asked Oscar.

"Missed!" A look pa.s.sed over Dr. Willett's face, which Inna, watching, thought very like that on her father's face when he kissed her "Good-bye," before she came down to the farm.

"Missed you, Master Oscar! yes, we're all missed, even when 'tis a boy we're keeping the farm for," was Mrs. Grant's unlooked-for remark.

"Very silly of Mrs. Grant, to bring up that question of the farm on the first night of the boy's return," observed the doctor, when he and his friend were sipping their coffee together, the young folk gone to bed, the budget of Oscar's adventures to be opened on the morrow.

"You see, dear," said that lady to Inna, after Jenny was asleep; and Inna's eyes were sadly wakeful. "You see, dear, I wanted Master Oscar to see, while his heart was tender, on this first night, that as he had been missed and wanted by his uncle, it ought to be 'give and take' with him, when I spoke about the farm."

"Give and take?"

"Yes, Miss Inna, give and take; it's that as smooths life's rough places. Master Oscar has nothing to give his uncle for all he's doing for him, but his will--letting go that foolish nonsense about the sea.

He ought to give up the sea and take to the farm--that would be his giving and taking; and his uncle would give him the farm, and take his--his obedience to his wishes, as a sort of harvest of love after all the years of sowing."

"Sowing?" said Inna.

"Yes, the doctor has sown a deal of trouble, thought, and anxiety over this young brother of his, at last lost at sea--that's Oscar's father, you know. I think, in his quiet way, he's set his heart on the boy making him some return, in the way of love and grat.i.tude; and besides, he says, putting him into the farm is the best thing he can do for him, leaving out the love, obedience, and grat.i.tude, and----" But Inna was asleep.

Well, the next evening's tea-drinking, over which Inna presided, was a sort of state tea-drinking at which Dr. Willett sat down, a thing he had scarcely ever been known to do before. But then, Oscar was to tell his adventures during tea; a poor, thin, hollow-eyed narrator was he, who had been down well-nigh to death's door.

The tea-table was gay with spring flowers, and through the open window came a chorus of sweet sounds, the bleating of lambs from the meadows, the lowing of the cows being driven home to their milking, the song of birds, the hum of insects--bees and gnats--the one toiling, the others dancing in idleness: types and shadows of the human race, as Mr. Barlow remarked. To which Jenny added, "Yes; and of boys and girls--the girls working, the boys idle."

But to this there was no time to make reply, for Inna had supplied them all with tea, and Oscar had cleared his throat like a story-teller in a book, and was waiting to begin.

"Well, you know when I started, and you shouted, and I shouted back,"

said he.

"Yes, we know--hurry up!" spoke Jenny, like an unmannerly boy.

"I went on first-rate for a time, then I came to a full stop, for I was at the Ugly Leap; and before I knew it I was over."