"It's not age," gloomily. "It's stupidness. All puppies are stupid, but Pickles is the most abnormously stupid puppy I ever saw."

Esther laughed. "Where did you get the word, ducky?"

"From the doctor. It was something he said about Aunt Amy. Say, Esther, isn't he going to take you driving any more? I saw him going past this very afternoon. He turned down towards the river road. There was lots of room. Next time he takes you, may Pickles and me go too?"

"Pickles and I, Jane."

"Well, may we?"

"I don't know. Perhaps. When did the doctor go past?"

"Nearly two hours ago. I wonder if there's some one kick down there?

Bubble says they're getting a tremenjous practice. I don't like Bubble any more. He thinks he's smart. I don't like Ann, either. I shan't ask her to my birthday party."

"I thought you loved Ann."

"Well, I don't. She thinks she's smart!"

"Ann, too? Smartness must be epidemic."

"It's all on account of the doctor," gloomily. "They can't get over having him boarding at their place. I told Ann that my own father was a doctor, but she said dead ones didn't count. Then I told her that my mother didn't have to keep boarders anyway."

"That was a naughty, sn.o.bbish thing to say. I'm ashamed of you!"

"What's 'sn.o.bbish'?"

"What you said was sn.o.bbish. Think it over and find out."

Jane was silent, apparently thinking it over. The fat pup, tired with unwonted mental exertions, curled up and went to sleep. Esther returned to her dreams. Then, into the warm hush of the late afternoon came the quick panting of a motor car.

"There he is!" cried Jane excitedly. "Let's both run down to the gate to see him."

"Jane!" Esther's cheeks were the colour of her ripest berry. "Jane, come here! I forbid you--Jane!"

"He's stopping anyway. He'll be coming in. You had better take off that ap.r.o.n.--Oh, look! Some one's with him. Why," with some disappointment, "it's mother! He is letting her out. I don't believe he is coming in at all--let go! Esther, you pig, let me go!"

She wriggled out of her sister's firm hold but not before the motor had started again; when she reached the gate it was out of sight.

Mrs. Coombe surveyed her daughter coldly. "You are a very ill-mannered child," she said, and putting her aside walked slowly up the path and around the house to where Esther sat on the back porch.

"Where are the daisies?" asked Esther, looking up from her berries.

"The daisies?" vaguely. "Good gracious! I forgot all about the daisies."

"Didn't you get any?"

"Heaps, but the fact is I didn't bring them home. I felt so tired. I don't know how I should have managed to get home myself if Dr. Callandar hadn't picked me up."

"Dr. Callandar?" Esther's voice was mildly questioning.

"Yes, why not?"

"I thought you had not met him."

"Neither I had--at least I hadn't met him for a good many years." Mary gave a little excited laugh. "But that's the funny part of it--he is an old friend."

Esther looked up with her characteristic widening of the eyes. The news was genuinely surprising. And how agitated her mother seemed!

"It is really quite a remarkable coincidence," went on Mary nervously.

"I was so surprised, startled indeed. Although it's pleasant, of course, to meet an old schoolmate."

"You and Doctor Callandar schoolmates?" The eyes were very wide now.

Mary grew more and more confused.

"Yes--that is, not exactly. I mean his name wasn't Callandar then. His name was Chedridge. Did you never hear me speak of Harry Chedridge?"

"Never."

"Well, you never listen to half I say. And how was I to know that Doctor Callandar was the Harry Chedridge I used to know? He took the name of Callandar from an uncle--or something. Anyway it isn't his own."

Esther hulled a particularly fine berry and carefully putting the hull in the pan, threw the berry away.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" she said, quoting the immortal Alice. "Did you recognise him at once?"

If it be possible for a lady of this enlightened age to simper, Mrs.

Coombe simpered. "He recognised me at once!" with faint emphasis on the p.r.o.nouns.

The girl choked down a rising inclination to laugh.

"Why shouldn't he? I suppose you haven't changed very much."

"Hardly at all, he says; at least he says he would have known me anywhere. But it's quite a long time, you know, terribly long. I was a young girl then. Naturally, he was much older."

"I should have thought so. That's why it seems queer--your having been schoolmates."

Mrs. Coombe looked cross. "I did not mean schoolmates in that sense."

"Oh, merely in a Pickwickian sense!" Esther's laugh bubbled out.

Mary arose. She was afraid to risk more at present, until she had been to her room and--rested awhile. "You are rude, as usual," she said with dignity. "When I said that Dr. Callandar and I were schoolmates I meant simply that we were old friends, that we knew each other when we were both younger. I do not see anything at all humorous in the statement."

"No, of course not!" with quick compunction. "It's quite lovely. Just like a book. Why didn't he come in?"

The question was so cleverly casual that no one could have guessed the girl's consuming interest in the answer. But its cleverness had overshot the mark, for so colourless was the tone in which it was asked that Mary did not notice it at all. Instead she retreated steadily along her own line.

"I hope I always treat your friends with proper courtesy, Esther. And I shall expect you to do the same with mine. Dr. Callandar is a very old friend indeed. Should he call to-night I wish you to receive him as such."

"I'll try," said the girl demurely.