So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how neat the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all bright and speckless with muslin blinds and bra.s.s rods, and a green parrot in a cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying clean and untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of his boots and how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone into the farmyard after eggs before starting that morning. As he stood there in anxious uncertainness he heard a low voice among the bushes. It said, 'Hist!

Oswald here!' and it was the voice of Alice.

So he went back to the others among the shrubs and they all crowded round their leader full of importable news.

'She's not in the house; she's HERE,' Alice said in a low whisper that seemed nearly all S's. 'Close by--she went by just this minute with a gentleman.'

'And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and she's got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I never saw anyone look so silly in all my born,' d.i.c.ky said.

'It's sickening,' Denny said, trying to look very manly with his legs wide apart.

'I don't know,' Oswald whispered. 'I suppose it wasn't Albert's uncle?'

'Not much,' d.i.c.ky briefly replied.

'Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that with this fellow she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is safe. And we've really done an unselfish action without having to suffer for it afterwards.'

With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he spoke in real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed. But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping to look about her a bit in the shrubbery. 'Where's Martha?' Dora suddenly said.

'She went that way,' pointingly remarked H. O.

'Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go for?'

Oswald said. 'And look sharp. Don't make a row.'

He went. A minute later we heard a hoa.r.s.e squeak from Martha--the one she always gives when suddenly collared from behind--and a little squeal in a lady-like voice, and a man say 'Hallo!' and then we knew that H. O.

had once more rushed in where angels might have thought twice about it.

We hurried to the fatal spot, but it was too late. We were just in time to hear H. O. say--

'I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you. Are you Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother?'

'NO,' said our lady unhesitatingly.

It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now going on. We stood still. The man was standing up. He was a clergyman, and I found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever knew except our own Mr Briston at Lewisham, who is now a canon or a dean, or something grand that no one ever sees. At present I did not like him. He said, 'No, this lady is n.o.body's grandmother. May I ask in return how long it is since you escaped from the lunatic asylum, my poor child, and whence your keeper is?'

H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say, 'I think you are very rude, and not at all funny, if you think you are.'

The lady said, 'My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all the others, and are you pilgrims again to-day?'

H. O. does not always answer questions. He turned to the man and said--

'Are you going to marry the lady?'

'Margaret,' said the clergyman, 'I never thought it would come to this: he asks me my intentions.'

'If you ARE,' said H. O., 'it's all right, because if you do Albert's uncle can't--at least, not till you're dead. And we don't want him to.'

'Flattering, upon my word,' said the clergyman, putting on a deep frown.

'Shall I call him out, Margaret, for his poor opinion of you, or shall I send for the police?'

Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and rather scared. She broke cover and sprang into the middle of the scene.

'Don't let him rag H. O. any more,' she said, 'it's all our faults. You see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find you, we thought perhaps you were his long-lost heiress sister or his old nurse who alone knew the secret of his birth, or something, and we asked him, and he said you were his long-lost grandmother he had known in India. And we thought that must be a mistake and that really you were his long-lost sweetheart. And we tried to do a really unselfish act and find you for him. Because we don't want him to be married at all.'

'It isn't because we don't like YOU,' Oswald cut in, now emerging from the bushes, 'and if he must marry, we'd sooner it was you than anyone.

Really we would.'

'A generous concession, Margaret,' the strange clergyman uttered, 'most generous, but the plot thickens. It's almost pea-soup-like now. One or two points clamour for explanation. Who are these visitors of yours? Why this Red Indian method of paying morning calls? Why the lurking att.i.tude of the rest of the tribe which I now discern among the undergrowth?

Won't you ask the rest of the tribe to come out and join the glad throng?'

Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same songs we do, and books and tunes and things.

The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as if she was going to cry. But she couldn't help laughing too, as more and more of us came out.

'And who,' the clergyman went on, 'who in fortune's name is Albert? And who is his uncle? And what have they or you to do in this galere--I mean garden?'

We all felt rather silly, and I don't think I ever felt more than then what an awful lot there were of us.

'Three years' absence in Calcutta or elsewhere may explain my ignorance of these details, but still--'

'I think we'd better go,' said Dora. 'I'm sorry if we've done anything rude or wrong. We didn't mean to. Good-bye. I hope you'll be happy with the gentleman, I'm sure.'

'I HOPE so too,' said Noel, and I know he was thinking how much nicer Albert's uncle was. We turned to go. The lady had been very silent compared with what she was when she pretended to show us Canterbury. But now she seemed to shake off some dreamy silliness, and caught hold of Dora by the shoulder.

'No, dear, no,' she said, 'it's all right, and you must have some tea--we'll have it on the lawn. John, don't tease them any more.

Albert's uncle is the gentleman I told you about. And, my dear children, this is my brother that I haven't seen for three years.'

'Then he's a long-lost too,' said H. O.

The lady said 'Not now' and smiled at him.

And the rest of us were dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was particularly dumb. He might have known it was her brother, because in rotten grown-up books if a girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that is not the man you think she's in love with; it always turns out to be a brother, though generally the disgrace of the family and not a respectable chaplain from Calcutta.

The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and said, 'John, go and tell them we'll have tea on the lawn.'

When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said, 'I'm going to tell you something, but I want to put you on your honour not to talk about it to other people. You see it isn't everyone I would tell about it. He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has told me a lot about you, and I know I can trust you.'

We said 'Yes', Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too well what was coming next.

The lady then said, 'Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother I did know him in India once, and we were going to be married, but we had a--a--misunderstanding.'

'Quarrel?' Row?' said Noel and H. O. at once.

'Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then. And then... well, we were both sorry, but well, anyway, when his ship came back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he couldn't find us. And he says he's been looking for me ever since.'

'Not you for him?' said Noel.

'Well, perhaps,' said the lady.

And the girls said 'Ah!' with deep interest. The lady went on more quickly, 'And then I found you, and then he found me, and now I must break it to you. Try to bear up.'