"Us, and our charge"

Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.

[Illustration: "ARE YOU ALL SAFE?"]

"Us, And Our Charge"

By

Amy Le Feuvre

Author of

"Us, and Our Donkey," "Us, and Our Empire," etc. etc.

London THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 4 Bouverie Street and 65 St. Paul's Churchyard

Printed In Great Britain By Hazell, Watson And Viney, LD. London And Aylesbury.

By The Same Author

Us, and Our Donkey Odd Us, and Our Empire A Puzzling Pair Harebell's Friend Teddy's Button Bulbs and Blossoms A Thoughtless Seven Bunny's Friends A Bit of Rough Road The Carved Cupboard Bridget's Quarter Deck Dwell Deep The Château by the Lake Eric's Good News A Daughter of the Sea His Birthday Heather's Mistress His Little Daughter Her Husband's Property Jill's Red Bag Joyce and the Rambler Laddie's Choice The Making of a Woman Legend Led The Mender A Little Listener Odd made Even A Little Maid Olive Tracy Me and Nobbles On the Edge of a Moor Miss Lavender's Boy Probable Sons

RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY 4 Bouverie Street. London, E.C.

Contents

Chapter

I. A Bomb-Shell

II. Our New Home

III. We Explore

IV. A Rescue

V. Missing

VI. A Long Sunday

VII. Pat Leaves Us

VIII. Our Governess

IX. My Godmother

X. The Beginning Of War

XI. The First Recruit

XII. Aunt Grisel'S Hospital

XIII. Our Search

XIV. The Find

XV. An Old Friend

XVI. Sad News

"Us, And Our Charge"

Chapter I

A Bomb-Shell

I CAN hardly believe it is only a year I since I wrote my diary. I think it is things happening that make people old, and not just weeks and months and years rolling by.

Last winter Aunt Mildred married a doctor, and went to India with him. In March Aunt Caroline died. She went to a doctor's house in London to be cured of something, and she wasn't cured, and she never came back to us. I learnt to keep house, and put down in a book when I spent money; and I felt a hundred years old when father would come to me and say, "My dear Grisel, I do miss your dear aunt so much; I wonder if you could help me."

Then—I must try and write it quickly without crying, for it blots the ink so—father took a funeral on a bitter cold day, and it was blowing a blizzard, and they kept him waiting, and when he came home he was all in a shiver. Martha, our cook, who knows about everything, made him go to bed, and sent for a doctor. And two days afterwards Dr. Lane told me father had double pneumonia, and he was afraid he wouldn't get better.

It seemed as if the end of the world had come then.

Martha had a woman in from the village to help her nurse him. And Lynette and I cried all day long, while Puff couldn't and wouldn't understand how ill father was, and made as much noise as he always does. We sent for the boys to come home. And when Denys was here, I seemed to get more time to creep in and out of father's room, for he kept Puff quiet.

Father couldn't speak, and he seemed to be always sleeping, but one evening I was sitting with him. It was Sunday, and the others had gone to church. Another clergyman had come to take the service.

Suddenly father looked up quite brightly.

"Grisel," he said in a husky voice, "good little Grisel!"

"Oh, father!" I said, holding up one of his hands to my cheek. "You are going to get better."

He shook his head, and then after a few minutes he said in a husky voice:

"Grisel—remember—tell the boys—I charge you—Hold fast! Hold fast!—"

He stopped, and seemed to fall asleep before he had finished what he was saying.

Those were his last words. He died that night.

I want to write this quickly. It seemed all like a dreadful dream, but a dream which we could not wake up from.

The next thing that happened was father's lawyer arriving. Such a nice man! His name is Mr. Adamson. He told us that he and father used to be school-boys together, and father had been writing a lot of letters to him lately about us. He saw to everything, and after the funeral, still stayed on with us, arranging everything.

We shall have to leave this dear old Rectory, of course—and all the furniture is to be sold. But the most surprising thing of all is a letter that has arrived to-day. Aylwin says it is a bomb-shell, but Mr. Adamson is not a bit surprised; in fact, it is all through him that it has come.

You see, while Mr. Adamson has been looking through father's papers, we have talked together a lot, and Denys and I feel we're the eldest in a way that we've never felt before. Of course, Denys is always good at making plans, and Aylwin likes to argue against him just for the sake of argument. At first I felt nobody mattered, and nothing mattered, except that father had left us. But boys never think like that, and so Denys called a council to-day, directly after breakfast, and we met in our schoolroom.

Our dear old schoolroom! I love it so! Father and I had been talking about a governess coming to take Aunt Caroline's place, but time slipped on, and we have never yet heard of any one who seems exactly right. Now all that is over! Well, Denys began:

"It's all very well for Adamson to be telling us what we ought and what we oughtn't to do, but he isn't a relative—only a lawyer, though he's a decent chap. And lawyers expect to be paid for their advice. So I vote we do without him, and settle how we're going to live without his interference!"

Aylwin shook his head with his wiseacre look.

"That's all gas! We're minors, that's what we are, and it's a rotten fact which can't be got over."

Puff was seated on the top of his toy-cupboard, looking full of importance. Now he said, his eyes nearly starting out of his head with eagerness:

"What's a minor? I thoughted they were underground coal men!"

The boys laughed, but Lynette cried:

"Denys isn't a minor; he is Marjoribanks Major at school, and Aylwin is the minor!"

"Oh, stow it!" said Aylwin impatiently. "You're such a set of babies. A man is a minor till he is twenty-one, and lawyers can have their way with us till then."

"Perhaps," I said slowly, for I was thinking it out, "I can persuade him to let us take a cheap little cottage somewhere. It wouldn't cost much, and we could do without servants!"

Lynette made a grimace.

"I hate making beds and dusting!" she said.

"Will you listen to me?" said Denys in his grandest tone. "I mean to make Adamson tell me exactly how much money there is, and then we'll settle our plans accordingly. There's many a fellow my age who works to keep his family, and if it has got to be done, I'll do it, even if I may have to sweep out a shop!"

Aylwin and Lynette burst out laughing. Denys isn't the kind to use a broom, and we know it!

"You are going to be a soldier, Denys," I said earnestly. "However poor we are, you and Aylwin have got to serve your country—"

Denys looked very grave.

"That depends," he began; "and—"

Then the door opened, and Mr. Adamson walked in upon us. He is lodging in the village, and comes round every day after breakfast, and generally shuts himself up in father's study.

But he looked as if he had good news for us, and I wondered how he had the heart to smile as he did, when we were all in such trouble.

"Good morning, youngsters. Now I want a little talk with you. Have you ever heard of your grandfather Noble, or any of his family?"

"Noble was mother's name before she married," I said, "for Grace Noble was written in her old Bible. But mother never talked about her family to us. I didn't know she had one! I mean—I thought they were all dead long ago."

"Yes," said Denys, "she used to talk of a brother who died at sea, and a sister called Isobel; she told me of a scrape they got into once, when they were kids."

"A family estrangement is a sad thing," said Mr. Adamson, "but I took upon myself to write to your grandfather. And he has responded in a most generous way. In fact, he tells me he had seen the notice of your father's death in the paper, and was intending to write to ask if his people were looking after you. Hearing of your sad circumstances, he writes to offer you all, without any reservation, a home with him."

This was the bomb-shell. We simply stared at each other in amazement. We didn't know what to say for a moment.

Then I said:

"But I—we thought our grandfather was dead. Is he alive?"

"Very much so, and your Aunt Isobel lives with him, and says she will do her best to give you a welcome."

Denys drew himself up, and put on what Aylwin calls his Grand-duke's face.

"May I ask who and what our grandfather is, and why he hasn't taken the trouble to know us all these years?"

"Just stiff pride, my boy, and a hot temper. He did not wish your mother to marry your father, and she resisted his will and did it."

"Good for her!" muttered Aylwin.

"Our mother's grandmother was a Lady Louisa Noble," said Denys still very grandly. "Is this man his son?"

"Gently, my boy. Age merits respect. Your grandfather is a fine hearty old gentleman of comfortable means, and his place in Scotland is called Bantock Hall. He has been in the Army, and is a retired Colonel."

"Hem!" said Denys, refusing to be impressed. "He ought to have been a General before he left—something shady I should think if he wasn't. Either want of brains, or want of pluck!"

I gasped out:

"Oh, Denys, do hush! You're talking of darling mother's father!"

There was quite a scowl on Denys's face.

Mr. Adamson tapped the table with his pencil.

"Whatever your grandfather has done in the past, he has made generous amends now. It is not every one who would open their doors to five grandchildren of whom they know nothing. I trust you will all show your gratitude to him for his offer."

"Look here," said Denys, speaking very sternly, just as he does to Puff when he has been doing something dreadful: "is it absolutely impossible for us to live by ourselves, without living on our grandfather's charity? It isn't very pleasant for us, whatever he may feel about it. What money have we got? That's the question."

"Your father insured his life for £2,000. That will bring in about £80 or £90. But none of that can be touched except to help with your education—and five of you cannot live on that."

"If we had had no grandfather, what should we have done?" demanded Aylwin.

Mr. Adamson shrugged his shoulders.

"A black look-out for you! But we won't think of imaginary circumstances. This is Tuesday. Your grandfather has expressed his wish that you should go to him next Monday. That will leave you nearly a week to pack your clothes, say good-bye to your friends—and—and get accustomed to the idea of the move."

"What's his address?" asked Denys.

"Bantock Hall, near Killochan. I'll travel with you myself as far as Carlisle."

We could only stare at each other. The shock of it made me feel quite stupid. Why had we never heard of this grandfather before? Why had dear father never told us of him? That's what puzzled me.

And when Mr. Adamson went back to the study, I said so.

"It remains to be seen," said Aylwin, shaking his head mysteriously, "whether he's the genuine article or not. He won't long deceive us, if he's a rogue and a pretender."

"But why should he want the bother of us?" I said.

"Our money," suggested Lynette; "some old misers will do anything for gold."

Denys tramped up and down the room, and then stood frowning with his arms folded, like the picture of Napoleon in the dining-room.

"I don't like it," he said. "I wonder if he knows how old we are? He may think we are all nursery kids."

"We shall have to go," I said, tears coming into my eyes; for I felt awful at leaving our darling Rectory, we did all love it so!

"And this day week," said Lynette excitedly, "we shall be in his house and know all about him—I think it will be rather fun. And we're all going together; it won't be half bad!"

That's just like Lynette! She would say, if we were all going to be executed, that after all it would be rather fun!

I couldn't try to smile, but Puff broke in with his eager stammer:

"I—I think it will be jolly to go in the train, and shall we go across the sea to Scotland?"

"Get your geography book!" growled Denys.

Then Lynette and I went away to tell the servants, for cook had been awfully good to us. She has thought of everything and done everything, and made us a lovely cake only yesterday, "to cheer us up," she said.

It seems odd how we do get accustomed to things. We had another talk together after tea. And then Denys, who had been shut up in his bedroom for ever so long, told us what he had been doing.

"I'm not a baby," he said, "and, whether we're minors or not, we can't be packed off from one side of Great Britain to the other without feeling it. So I've just written a letter to the old gentleman. After all, I'm head of the family, and I considered it my duty. Would you like to hear it?"

Aylwin grinned and Lynette clapped her hands.

Denys stood by the fire, cleared his throat, and began:

"Dear Sir,

"We are told by our lawyer that you say you are our grandfather and would like us to pay you a visit—"

"I want you all to keep this in mind," said Denys, looking at us sternly: "We're going on a visit, and if there are ructions—well, we can just come away again!"

"Where to?" I said under my breath.

Denys went on reading:

"We have agreed we don't mind doing this, as if you are our mother's father, we should like to know you—"

"I shouldn't!" muttered Aylwin.

"I suppose you are aware that a few hours ago we did not know that you were alive, so your letter has rather upset our plans and arrangements. Adamson is a good sort of chap, and we've told him we'll fall in. So you can expect us Monday—"

"Denys," I interrupted, "it strikes me as rather a rude letter, and ungrateful. He has offered us a home, remember! Don't pretend we don't understand it."

"Stow your jaw, old Gristle!" Aylwin said hotly. "You are like a suet pudding, so soft and sticky. This unknown relative of ours wants to be made to sit up. He has treated us abominably all these years!"

"He hasn't treated us at all," Lynette remarked.

"Will you shut up, and let me get on?" said Denys.

He went on reading:

"And there remains now nothing to add but to thank you for your sudden desire to know us. I hope you'll find us worth the knowing.

"D. Marjoribanks,

"The Head Of The Family."

"That isn't bad," said Aylwin as Denys came to a solemn pause, "but I think I could rub it in a bit harder about springing himself upon us like a Jack-in-the-Box. Do let me add a P.S."

"And me!" cried Lynette.

"And me!" I said.

"And me myself!" shouted Puff.

So after a good deal of argument, Denys let us each add our postscript. We told him that we must be in the letter, to show we weren't babies, so these are the postscripts.

"P.S.—We'll try to be worth knowing, for darling mother was your daughter, and that's why I want to see you, and thank you very much for telling us to come.—GRISEL."

"P.S.—But it's rough lines on fellows of the Fifth Form to have a strange grandfather spring on them like this.—AYLWIN."

"P.S.—And we hope you'll be like old General Walton, who gives his grandchildren high-jinks at Xmas.—LYNETTE."

"P.S.—And I hopes you have a pond with fwogs like us.—PUFF."

When Mr. Adamson came in to wish us good-night, Denys told him, in a grand way, that we had written to our grandfather.

"It's in the Post Office," said Denys, a little defiantly.

I thought he seemed afraid that Mr. Adamson would want to see it, but he only looked at Denys curiously, and said nothing.

After he had gone, we got out the map of Scotland and tried to see where Bantock Hall could be. We hunted for Killochan up and down for ages, and then at last Denys got a "Bradshaw" from father's study. He's always so clever about trains, and then we found it by each taking a part of the map, and we were awfully delighted to find that Killochan is on a little line not far from the sea. So then we settled ourselves round the fire, and we each described the house as we thought it would be.

Denys said, staring into the fire:

"I see a rugged tower house on bleak rocks with the sea dashing up to the small, narrow windows. Seagulls are screaming from their nests, there's no garden, no trees, nothing but grey rocks and grey sea, and a heavy nailed door, and inside there are stone passages, and dark chill rooms—"

We all shuddered.

Then Aylwin said:

"I see a straight long house with a courtyard, and fierce dogs before the door. When you open it, you go into a banqueting-hall, but it's empty, and there are holes in the floor, and broken windows, and rats racing round. In a west wing lives a shabby little man, and a tall, grim woman, his daughter. There's an old witch of a woman who's their servant, and they're chuckling over some underground rooms where some unknown grandchildren are going to be put. 'We'll make 'em work!' says the old man. He's a kind of inventor, and keeps machinery which he wants worked!"

We could not help laughing at Aylwin's picture. He loves making a story out of nothing.

"Now, listen!" said Lynette. "I see a lovely garden with fountains and apple-trees, and little boats ready for the sea, and sand, and bathing-machines, and a house full of sunshine and flowers, and a lot of servants, and ponies in stables, and a smiling old grandfather."

"I see," I said, "a big house, but very cold and stern, and it's in a town with a lot of houses round it. And there's a parade and a band, and no country at all, and no garden, and everything goes by clockwork. Now, Puff, it's your turn! What do you think our new home will be like?"

Puff's eyes nearly started out of his head. "I don't know, really I doesn't. I thinks it may be like this house, only with a very big hall to it—"

Then he snuggled up to me.

"Is this old grandfather a good man?"

"Oh yes, I suppose he is," I said vaguely.

"Then God will live in his house, just as He does in this one, won't He?"

Puff does say queer things.

"God lives everywhere, Puff; you know that."

"Not in wicked people's houses. He never does. Oh dear no! The devil lives with them."

He nodded his head so knowingly that I didn't know what to say—

"Well," said Lynette, "now we'll see who will be right. We've all made quite certain we're going to live in a big house."

"That's because of its name," I said; "a house is never called a hall unless it's pretty big!"

"I think we're jolly lucky," said Lynette. "Now there's no fear of us being beggars. Oh how I wish I could jump right into next Tuesday! It's awfully exciting not to know what kind of place we're going to!"

"It's a crisis in our lives," said Denys gravely.

"And crisises are always stunning," Lynette exclaimed. "But I don't know. I don't feel I shall be able to sleep to-night because of the strangeness of it all."

And Denys said to me, when we were going upstairs to bed:

"We must just grin and bear it. That's the worst of being minors, but we'll hope for the best."

"Yes," I answered, "it makes one rather fearful, but Puff is right—we can't get away from God."

Denys just gave a nod. He never talks goody, but he and I feel the same about things.

And now we're going to bed, and this day week where shall we be?

Chapter II

Our New Home

OUR last Sunday! I've been crying off and on all day, when nobody was near me to see. It's all so sweet and sad here, and the future makes me afraid. Yesterday we all went round in a bunch to every house in the village to say good-bye. It took us all day, and it was awful doing it, for Denys and Aylwin hate girls' tears, and I had to choke mine back all the time.

Everybody was so kind, and so sorry that we were going! And now to-day it has been worse than ever. Church this morning made me miserable. I couldn't sing a single hymn. We all went to father's grave afterwards and Mr. Scammell, who came over to take the services, followed us there and tried to cheer us up. I ran indoors very quickly.

In the afternoon it was so sunny we all went into the garden and wandered round and round, and then we sat together on the seat outside father's study and talked.

I began it. I said to Denys that one thing we must all remember was father's last words.

"What were they?" Aylwin asked.

"'Hold fast!' He said to me:

"'Grisel, remember—tell the boys—I charge you—Hold fast! Hold fast!'"

"What did he mean?" Lynette asked with a grave face.

"I'm sure it's in the Bible," I said; "I know 'hold fast' is mentioned there."

"Yes, but hold fast to what?" said Denys. "I think we'd better get a Bible and look. A concordance would be the thing."

Aylwin dashed into the house for the concordance and Lynette dashed after him for the Bible. They raced each other back, and knocked Puff over on the gravel path. He yelled, and I had to comfort him, and seat him up beside me, before we could go on. Then Denys took hold of the concordance, and Aylwin seized the Bible.

"You call out, and I'll turn up!" he said. "This is a kind of Sunday-school!"

"We won't make fun of it!" I murmured.

Lynette gave me a little pinch.

"Don't be too dismal, Grizzy!" she said.

And then the boys began. The first verse they found was:

"'Hold fast that which is good.'"

Then they called out some others:

"'Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard.'"

"'That which ye have already hold fast till I come.'"

"'Hold that fast which thou hast, that no man take thy crown.'"

"The question is," said Denys gravely, "which verse did father mean?"

"It was his charge to us," I said; "we must find out."

"All those verses mean the same thing," said Denys in his judge-like manner.

Aylwin dropped the Bible.

"Then we needn't worry," he said.

"But we must. It must be our motto, our charge," I said eagerly. "And I think father must have wanted to say that we must hold fast to what he had taught us. He knew that we should be all alone, and that there would be nobody left to help us to be good!"

"I think the easiest to remember is the first," said Lynette.

"I like 'That which ye have already hold fast till I come,'" I said.

Lynette made a little grimace.

"Yes, Grizzy, you have goodness in you to hold fast to, but what about us who haven't? If I hold fast to what I have already, it will be badness, and I don't think father would mean that."

"Well," said Denys, "we'll take the shortest and easiest: 'Hold fast that which is good.' That is our charge, and we'll have to remember it."

Aylwin jumped up from the seat. "And now we've done school, and I'm off to see old Andy."

Lynette and Puff went off with him to see our donkey. Denys and I sat still.

"It's rather true what Lynette said," he remarked; "we must get the thing first, before we hold fast to it."

"I think father meant to hold fast to the good teaching we have had. We know what is good and right, Denys; it's the holding fast to it that's so difficult. We've been taught all these years how to live, now we've got to do it."

"There's the rub!"

"Yes," I said in a whisper, "but though father has been taken from us, Jesus Christ hasn't. He will help us."

Denys nodded.

We didn't say any more, and the rest of the day has gone now, and I'm going to bed.

It's the last night I shall ever sleep here, and I feel as if I shall never be really happy again. We had "There is a blessed Home" in the evening service. I wish an earthquake would swallow us all up and take us there at once. Then we'd be with father and mother again. I'm quite certain we shall never "hold fast" properly all our lives. And, if we live to be a hundred, how dreadfully difficult it will be to be good all that time!

* * * * *

It is some days since I wrote in this diary, and I shall have to go a good bit back. Our journey here was a very long one. At first we rather liked it, then we all got cross, and, after Mr. Adamson left us at Carlisle, we quarrelled and Puff cried, and we were all dead tired.

We got to Glasgow at seven o'clock in the evening.

Denys said now that we were in Scotland we must try and speak Scotch, and he said to the porter when we got out, "Now my bonny lad, there's a muckle lot of luggage, and ye ken we have anither train to catch!"

But the porter laughed in his face in a very rude way, and it turned out he wasn't Scotch at all.

When we got into the other train, we began to enjoy ourselves, for very soon we put out our heads, and in the dusk could see a great line of sea. We smelt it too, and it got so cold that only the boys could keep their heads out. Then Lynette and I began to tidy ourselves, and Puff. He always gets dirty if he is ten minutes in a train. And then as we got nearer and nearer our station, I had a funny sick feeling inside. I felt I would give worlds for the train not to stop, but go on for ever. I was dreading our arrival.

At last Killochan station was called out. But by this time it was quite dark, and we tumbled out upon the platform all in confusion. Puff was almost asleep, he was so tired, and I had to shake him to make him walk at all. There was a nice old stationmaster who seemed to know all about us.

"Come along! Come along, the whole brood o' ye!" he said. "The Kornel have sent the carriage, and I telled him I wud have the care o' ye!"

He bustled us out into the road, where a very big brougham stood waiting. There was a lovely pair of horses, and Denys and Aylwin both wanted to sit outside on the box with the coachman. In the end Denys got up, and Aylwin came inside with us. He was a little sulky at first.

"Packed in with a lot of girls!" he muttered.

"And a lot of boys," laughed Lynette. "We're quits—two and two!"

"Oh dear!" I sighed. "I wish we were there, and it was over!"

We tried to see what the country was like out of the window, but it was too dark.

"I bet old Denys is pumping the coachman!" said Aylwin. "He'll know everything before we get there!"

"Never mind," I said. "Perhaps it's better not to know. I think somebody might have come to meet us."

Then we were all pretty silent; we seemed to have talked ourselves out. It had been such a long journey! We drove on and on and on, and at last, just when I was getting sleepy, we stopped with a jerk. Aylwin put his head out.

"The mansion!" he said. "We are passing through the gates."

"Just like the Hall at home," said Lynette gleefully. "Why, Grisel, we have risen; we are no longer poor clergyman's children, but the grandchildren of a squire!"

"Little snob!" Aylwin cried, and Lynette didn't say any more.

Then in a very few minutes we had stopped again, and were outside a huge door. When it was opened, it seemed like a palace to us. A very big hall was in front of us, and an old butler, and it was all lighted up, and there were great pots of flowers at the bottom of a staircase, and a lot of oil-paintings on the walls.

Denys got in front of us in a great hurry; then he threw up his head:

"Will you tell our grandfather we have come," he said in his grandest tone.

"They're at dinner, sir," the butler said respectfully. He said it as if they were in church and couldn't be interrupted.

Denys got very hot and red, and then, before we could say anything, a door opened and a very tall lady came out. She was in a pale grey satin dress and had grey hair, and a lot of diamonds glistening about her. I fell in love with her on the spot, for she was beautiful, though she looked stern and cold, and there was just a tiny look of mother in her eyes.

"Ah!" she said. "You have all arrived, then. I thought I heard the carriage, but your train must have been late."

She seemed to look at each of us quickly one after the other, and then she stooped and kissed Puff.

"You must all be hungry and tired, but old Peggy will see to you. Here she is! Peggy, take them upstairs to their nursery, give them some supper and pack them off to bed."

An old woman with a fat smiling face came waddling towards us. The boys looked at each other, and I saw that they were furious.

We came to a lovely large room with a big square table covered with a white cloth. There were a blazing fire and a book-case and a big couch and a cane rocking chair. And Lynette and I squeezed each other's hands and suddenly felt that we could be happy.

And then Peggy turned round and faced us all, and tears were dropping down her cheeks.

"Ye'll be Miss Grace's bairns, and I nursed her when I was but a bairn mysel'!"

I couldn't help it. I just ran into her arms and hugged and kissed her.

"You knew darling mother!"

And the next minute she was kissing us all, even the boys. But I turned away my face when she kissed them, for I knew how they would feel.

And then she told us that she lived in a little cottage in the village, but had promised our aunt to come up and look after us till we had settled in.

"Your Aunt Isobel doesna understand bairns, but she means weel, though she be of few wor-rds."

Then she bustled out of the room and called us to look at our bedroom.

We were all together, and that I felt to be a comfort, and we were in the old nursery wing of the house, which had a separate staircase, and was shut away by a thick door covered with green baize. The boys had one huge bedroom to themselves with three beds in it, and three windows, and three of everything.

Lynette said it reminded her of the Three Bears' room—for Puff had a little bed, and a little chair, and a little chest of drawers. Peggy told us that Aunt Isobel had sent to the lawyer for our exact ages, and that she and Aunt Isobel had arranged it all very carefully.

Lynette and I had a lovely room, and Peggy told us it used to be mother's room when she was a little girl. It was too dark to see out of the windows, but everything seemed rich and comfortable. The carpets were thick, and there were cushioned chairs. When I thought of our bare rooms at home, I felt the difference, and yet a lump came into my throat, and I longed to be back in the dear old Rectory.

We washed our hands and faces, and then went back to the old nursery, which we determined to call the schoolroom. And then we found a nice supper waiting for us. Some Scotch broth in a great soup tureen, and some bread-and-butter, and potted meat and cake and jam. We were all very hungry, and after old Peggy had waited upon us, she left the room, and then at last we were by ourselves.

"It's simply stunning!" said Lynette with a beaming smile. "It's all ever so much better than I thought!"

But the boys looked cross, and I knew why. They did not like being treated like children and packed off to the nursery, and to bed without seeing our grandfather. And then it turned out that they did not like Puff being in their room. He had never slept with them at home.

"I think the sooner I have a talk with our grandfather the better!" said Denys in his lordly way.

Aylwin chuckled.

"You'll be told to do as Peggy tells us, or you'll be put in the corner," he said. "We shall be taught our A B C by her to-morrow!"

Lynette giggled, but I felt a little anxious.

"I dare say," I said, "they're having a dinner-party to-night. Aunt Isobel couldn't be dressed like that every night. And anyhow we're very tired and untidy. We shall make a better impression to-morrow."

Denys gave a little snort, but he didn't say any more. And when we had had our supper, we all confessed that we were tired, and went off to bed.

The next morning Lynette woke me up by screaming:

"Grisel! Grisel! Come and look!"

I dashed out of bed, as she had got the window open and was hanging out of it.

I never saw such loveliness. It was a sunny morning, and the great blue sea was stretching right in front of us. There was a big sloping grass lawn, and then a low stone wall, and then a beach with brown rocks and green seaweed, and a lot of sand, and a great line of white surf. It made a booming sound as it broke on the rocks. We could smell that delicious seaweedy smell that always makes me remember days at the seaside. But now we were going to live by it always! I felt my heart beating with excitement.

"Oh Lynette!" I cried. "Let us dress ourselves quickly and run down to the beach. I'm dying to see it close!"

"Yes," assented Lynette. "Grandfather may be an ogre, and Aunt Isobel a vixen for all I care! We've got the sea, and nobody can take it from us!"

And then Peggy came to the door, for we had slept very late, and another servant brought us our baths, and we dressed as quickly as we could. The boys had a bathroom all to themselves, and we heard an awful row going on and shrieks from Puff!

"They're making him wash himself!" chuckled Lynette.

Puff hates washing. I never can understand why, but I was a little afraid that the boys might be rough with him, and was going to speak to them, only Lynette persuaded me not to interfere.

"You only make him worse, Grizzy! Denys says he wants a man's firm hand!"

"Denys's hand isn't a man's!" I retorted. "And he is rough, not firm!"

But I didn't go, for before I was dressed, I looked out of the window and saw the boys flying across the lawn with Puff at their heels.

Lynette was off at once, but she stopped at the door.

"I suppose I shall have to say my prayers!" she said, and then she dropped down on her knees.

I joined her, and then we read our "Daily Light" together, as we always do.

Lynette is very harum-scarum still, but she was ill and on her back for more than a year, and she has been different ever since.

"I suppose," she said, "it's one of the things we've got to hold fast to, Grizzy, saying our prayers and reading the Bible, isn't it?"

I nodded.

"Yes, that's what father meant, I know."

I followed her downstairs more soberly. I felt rather wicked for being so happy at the sight of the sea, when father had just died. I tried to keep thinking of the dreadful day when he died, but when I was out in the sunshine, my feet felt as if they would dance by themselves whether I wished them to do it or not. And then I forgot all about it, and raced across the lawn, and down to the sea as fast as ever I could.

Oh, it was a lovely time! We forgot all about breakfast. We climbed over the rocks, and the boys took off their shoes and stockings and paddled, and we hung over delicious pools full of crabs and limpets and crimson sea anemones, and we drew figures in the sand, and I don't believe we would ever have gone back to the house at all if we had not been fetched by old Peggy. She came waddling across the lawn, and Aylwin scoffed under his breath.

"We're being fetched in by our nursie!"

But Denys shut him up. Denys is always polite, even sometimes when he feels furious inside.

So we told her we'd forgotten breakfast, and Denys said:

"I think you'd better ring a big bell for breakfast. I'll speak to my grandfather about it. We shall always be out here in the morning."

And then we went indoors, and found it was past nine o'clock. There was no sign of anybody about the house except servants, and we agreed that we did not want to see anybody just yet.

"We'll have time to see over the house and garden and stables," said Denys, "and feel our way about. And if the old gentleman isn't keen on seeing us, I'm sure I'm not keen on seeing him."

"I feel rather frightened of him," I confessed. "I should like to get it over."

"Don't you shiver and shake and kneel down and lick his toes, Grizzy!" said Aylwin. "For you'll spoil the whole show if you do. We must take a high hand with the old chap, and make him see he can't bully us!"

"I don't expect he wants to do that," I said.

Peggy hovered about us while we were at breakfast, and then Lynette asked her straight out:

"Doesn't grandfather want to see us? What is he like? Do tell us."

I think I shall have to stop writing Scotch as Peggy speaks it. I can't do it, so I shall write what she says in English. She rolls her r's a good deal, and there are some words that I have never heard before, but I'll leave those out.

She told us that there were people to dinner last night, and that we arrived later than they expected us, and that grandfather suffered from gout in his foot, and was not so active as he used to be. She said he always had his breakfast in his bedroom, and that he never came downstairs before eleven o'clock, and she told us that Aunt Isobel was a widow and her name was Mrs. Crichton, and that a good many visitors stayed in the house.

"And I'm to tell ye to stay up here till your grandfather can see ye!" she finished up.

"But that's ridiculous," said Denys. "We're not going to shut ourselves up in one room for nearly two hours doing nothing when there's the sea all outside waiting for us!"

"That is the message the mistress sent," said Peggy, snapping her lips together in a severe way. "She doesn't want ye away from the house when your grandfather is wanting ye!"

"But my good old creature," said Denys, "all you've got to do is to tell us the time he wants us, and we'll be there. I have a watch."

"Them's the orders given to me," said Peggy, "and I'd ask ye to be good bairns and not anger the master the first day!"

She stumped out of the room, and we looked at each other in dismay. I suppose dear father always trusted us so, that we have been accustomed to be very free. He gave us so few orders! Denys and Aylwin jumped up from the breakfast-table and stamped round the room. They were very angry. Aylwin was for going out into the garden at once, but Denys was wiser.

"No, we'll just be decent the first day, but I'll have a talk with him, and explain that he is not to treat us like small kids. He doesn't seem to know our ages!"

I got Lynette over to the book-case, for I knew it was no good listening to the boys. We are all fond of books, and we were awfully interested in finding some books with mother's name in. And there were one or two volumes called "Peter Parley's Tales," with all kinds of things that boys love: conjuring, and rabbit keeping, and old stamps.

The boys came over to look at them, and we were so interested that the time flew, and when Peggy came in saying solemnly:

"The master wishes to see ye in the library," we were quite astonished.

"Don't look as if you're going to be hung, drawn, and quartered, old Grizzy," Aylwin said to me going downstairs.

But I couldn't laugh. I felt so dreadfully nervous! And I wasn't only afraid of grandfather, but of what the boys would say.

We went down the big staircase, and then the old butler, who seemed as if he was waiting for us, took us along to a closed door at the end of the hall, and threw it open.

And this is how he announced us—I rather liked it:

"Miss Grace's family, sir!"

Chapter III

We Explore

IT was a big warm, airless room; you could see no walls for the bookshelves and pictures which covered it. Aunt Isobel was sitting by the fire with the newspaper in her hand. She looked very tall and grand, but grandfather was quite little, and very stout. He had a very red face, and a white moustache, and very thin white hair, and his eyebrows were thick and fierce. And this is what he said when he saw us:

"I say! What a crowd of them!"

"Come and introduce yourselves to your grandfather," said Aunt Isobel quietly. "The eldest first. Denys—isn't it?"

Denys marched up and held out his hand, and he stared at grandfather, and grandfather stared at him.

"I expect you'll find us older than you thought," Denys said in his cool grand manner; "there's only one of us that wants a nursery!"

And then Puff surprised me by pushing forward and sticking out his fat chest in absurd imitation of Denys.

"But that isn't me!" he cried. "I never has had a nursery all my life, and I won't be putted in it now."

Grandfather held out his hand at once to him.

"Well spoken, my little Bantam! Where would you like to be putted?"

Puff's one little spark of impudence was over. He lowered his head and got very red.

"Puff doesn't know what he is talking about," I said. "He tries to be bigger than he is. But if you don't object, grandfather, we'd like to call the nursery the schoolroom."

Puff seemed to have broken the ice and grandfather did not look alarming to me; only little, and old.

And then we all shook hands with him, and told him our names, and Denys began to talk. But I did not fancy he was quite so sure of himself now as he had been upstairs, for he stammered a little.

"We'd like to thank you for having us here, and—and—I dare say you'll let us fellows know about school and that kind of thing. We're going to be soldiers, Aylwin and I. We think the Navy good enough for Puff. He's short and stubborn and wants keeping down, but of course he's a kid, and hasn't had much chance as yet. I don't know what you'll settle about the girls."

There was dead silence, then grandfather threw his head back on his cushion and began to laugh. Denys got as red as Puff had, for grandfather seemed to be laughing at him. And then he turned to Aunt Isobel.

"I wash my hands of 'em all, my dear. You'll settle what becomes of them. I don't envy you the job. And, now I've seen them, they can make themselves scarce."

He waved his hand to us, as if dismissing us, and said:

"Go on reading, Isobel."

But Denys stood firm. He wasn't going to be treated like this.

"Excuse me, grandfather, but there are a few things we'd like to say. First, the old servant of yours—Peggy—seems to think that she is to rule us. She may manage Puff, but not the rest of us. We hope you'll trust to our honour to behave ourselves. We mean to, and we're accustomed to go our own way, and do pretty well as we think best. If you have any special rules you'd like us to follow, we'll keep them, but we've never been managed by an old woman servant, and never shall be!"

Then grandfather turned upon him. He simply thundered. I was really frightened.

"'While' you're under my roof, young fellow, you're under my orders, I'll have you remember! I'll have no impertinence from you. I'm an old soldier, and when I say a thing I stick to it. I've rescued you from the workhouse for the sake of—"

Here he gulped and almost choked.

"—of your mother, who—who rued the day she went against my wishes. And as to going your own way, it will be my way, I can tell you. Isobel, pack them off to the school we heard about to-morrow. The sooner they're under discipline the better!"

Aunt Isobel murmured something under her breath about Easter holidays, and then Denys seemed to come to himself, and he spoke in his usual frank open way:

"I beg your pardon, sir. I ought not to have spoken so. Of course we're ready to carry out your orders. If we are not soldiers yet, we're Empire-builders, and we know discipline and duty are for all of us."

"Young Jackanapes!" growled grandfather.

But his outburst of temper seemed over.

"Go along with you," he said. "Your aunt will settle everything!"

We left the room feeling very small and rather miserable. I think we all felt that neither grandfather nor Aunt Isobel really cared twopence about us! And we all went up to the schoolroom to "talk over the situation,"—that's what Aylwin called it.

"The situation is a sad one," I said. And I sat down by the window, and looked out at the sea and felt miserable.

"It's a bad one!" said Denys, shaking his head.

Lynette danced round the table, her hair flying over her shoulders. She looked as if she hadn't a care in the world, and as if father hadn't died.

"Don't let us bother," she cried; "and don't let us stick up here. We have the whole day before us, and we can boat, and bathe, and paddle, and catch fish. Grandfather won't want to see any more of us. There's nothing to talk about. We have just got to enjoy ourselves!"

Puff clapped his hands and capered after her.

"I don't like the old gempleum at all!" he said. "And I won't never go into his room again."

Then the door opened very suddenly, and Aunt Isobel came in.

Denys very politely drew an arm-chair forward for her.

"I have come to talk to you all," she said, looking at us very gravely. "You do not seem to realise how very difficult it is for your grandfather to have taken you all in, as he has. He is an old man, and suffers very much from gout. And you, Denys, spoke to him in a most disrespectful and improper manner."

Denys got very red. Then he squared his shoulders and spoke out:

"I'm sorry. I should like you to explain things—it's strange to all of us, and I don't know what is expected of us."

"We have made arrangements for you two elder boys to go to a school about twenty miles from here as boarders. I have a governess coming in three weeks' time to teach you two girls, and your little brother. She will take entire charge of your education. Peggy will look after the little boy and mend your clothes and wait upon you. We had intended keeping you here for three weeks, but I don't know now that your grandfather will like to have you in the house."

"Oh, please Aunt Isobel," I said, "let us be together till we are accustomed to you. It all seems so dreadfully strange. We'll keep to our part of the house, won't we, boys? And grandfather need not see us at all, nor hear us. And we'll be as good as gold. We really will. It is very good of you to have us. We all feel that, don't we?"

I turned to the others, and they all nodded their heads.

I don't know if it was fancy, but I thought that Aunt Isobel seemed rather shy of us.

And then Lynette put in her word. She never can keep silent for long, but she put on her coaxing face.

"I dare say you'll just tell us whether there's a boat that we can have, and whether we shall have ponies to ride, or if there's a carriage to drive out in, and shall we have all our meals upstairs?"

"Most certainly. Peggy will arrange your meals. I dare say I may sometimes take one of you driving with me."

"And may we go all over the garden?" I asked.

"You may go anywhere you like, as long as you do not get into mischief. We have a boat, but you must never use it unless one of the men is with you. Davey, the under-gardener, takes it out, and he must always be with you."

"He'll have to come pretty often," said Aylwin under his breath.

"And please, Aunt Isobel," I said, "shall we ever have to come into your part of the house for anything—for—for prayers?"

She looked at me curiously, then said shortly:

"We have no prayers. If we want you, we shall send for you."

"There's just a question I'd like to ask," said Aylwin. "We're all stony broke—the whole lot of us. We haven't had our pocket-money for two months now, and we had to give a few presents away before we left the Rectory. I believe Grisel has twopence halfpenny, but that's as much as we possess between us. Is grandfather going to give us any pocket-money?"

"Shut up!" growled Denys. "There's plenty of time for that later on!"

Aunt Isobel got up from her chair.

"I'll speak to your grandfather about it," she said with great dignity, and then Puff astonished us by pushing up to her.

"Would you like to see me stand on my head?" he asked, smiling at her like a little angel. "I'm awful good at it!"

She waved him away.

"A very unhealthy occupation," she said, and then she left the room.

"Well," said Denys gloomily, "we've got something out of her, but she's a bit too cold for my liking. Now come on out, all of you!"

We were delighted, and, in spite of the strangeness and coldness of it all, we had an awfully jolly day. We first of all went to the stables and talked to the old coachman. There were only a fat pair of carriage horses and a gaunt-looking cob for a luggage cart. But Denys looked at the cart, told old Ambrose that it would suit us very well, and that he would like to drive out that afternoon.

"I'm a good whip," he said grandly; "and you can trust the old cob to me. We want to see the lie of the country. Will you send the cart round at three o'clock sharp!"

I gasped for breath. Lynette sniggled, and Aylwin winked at me. Denys very often astonished us, but I was astonished much more when Ambrose said meekly:

"Very well, sir. It shall be done."

And then we walked off and visited the dairy, and the laundry, and the walled fruit garden, and went along the long winding paths through the shrubbery, and were taken through the hothouses by a nice old gardener called Keith, and then the boys rushed off to see some silver pheasants, and we separated. Puff was enchanted to see a pond with some wild-fowl in it, and Lynette stayed with him whilst I went through a little iron gate in the middle of a high yew hedge, and found myself in a most lovely little sunk garden. It was an old rose garden, but there were no roses yet, only daffodils and narcissus in the bed. There were old rustic seats under trees—and a little stream which went along at the bottom and emptied itself, I suppose, into the pond. It seemed so quiet and still and peaceful, that for the first time I felt comforted. There was a sloping green bank covered with beautiful ferns, and a little rock garden at the top of it, and then suddenly I saw a little gravestone under a rose-tree, and when I went down on my knees before it, I read quite distinctly:

"In Memory Of Grace'S Darling Rosebud Destroyed By Fluffie'S Puppies."

I felt all the tears come into my eyes, for I knew then that "Rosebud" had belonged to our mother.

I did not know who Rosebud was, a canary, a cat, or what kind of pet, but I sat down by the grave, and I began to think of dear father's grave in Lincolnshire, and then I thought of Heaven, and then thought of the charge he left us.

And then I knelt down and asked God to help us to "Hold fast," for there seemed nobody in this place who would help us to be good. We all felt the difference since father died. We always had him to go to when we wanted help—and he often gave it to us when we didn't ask for it. And then I remembered that, of course, God could help us quite alone, and that we really did not want anybody else. I felt a little happier then.

Then I wondered what our governess would be like. Lynette and I have never had a proper governess before. I thought it might be rather nice, it wouldn't be quite so lonely if we had somebody to look after us a little. And then I heard Lynette calling to me, and of course when I ran off, I found that Puff had nearly tumbled into the pond, and had soaked his clothes. We went back to the house, for I knew it must be nearly dinner-time. The boys met us at the door, and we went upstairs together. Peggy took Puff off.

"Is he sich a naughty bairn?" she said a little crossly.

"Oh no," I said, "but it's his way; he's always getting wet, or dirty, or torn. We don't think anything of it."

We had a hot leg of mutton, and a jam roly-poly for dinner. And we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

"I don't know that I want a drive," Lynette said; "I want to get down to the sea."

"It's high tide in the afternoon," said Denys. "I knew that before I asked for the cart."

"I suppose grandfather won't mind us taking it out," I said.

"He won't know or care," said Denys confidently. "We must see what kind of country we are in and where the nearest town is."

We were all ready and waiting at three o'clock.

One of the grooms brought the cart round to the back entrance and we all crowded in. Then Peggy came out in a fuss.

"Where are you going? Who told you to do this? You'll upset yourselves."

The groom grinned.

"'Tis all right," he said. "The mistress were told by Ambrose afore we harnessed up, and her said as how she thought if the young gent could drive, they could go. Slapper be a reg'lar old sheep!"

So we all set off in style. Denys flourished his whip. We almost thought we were driving Andy again, only Slapper's long legs got over the ground much quicker. We couldn't help giving a cheer and a wave of our hands as we passed the front of the house, and Lynette said she believed she saw grandfather looking out at us.

We trotted down the avenue, and then got out on a bare bleak road, with a long stone wall separating us from the sea. The air was salt and delicious, and the waves were rolling in, in first-rate style. It made us feel very jolly, and we began to sing some of our Empire songs as we went along. We liked our "old sheep." He swung along and though he didn't appear to go fast, he really did, and he never turned his head to look at a single thing. We began to talk about him.

"I like him," I said; "he goes straight ahead and does his duty, and puts his whole soul into it."

"Horses have no souls," objected Lynette. "I don't think much of him; he has no spirit."

"He's quite an ancient," Aylwin said, "he has one foot in the grave, so of course he is solemn."

"I expect he was always an old sheep," said Denys. "He didn't even wink at us when he saw us, and he must know we're a fresh lot here. But he has got beyond being surprised. If we were to dress him up as we did Andy, he would just trot on as gravely as ever."

"We'll try," said Lynette.

So she took off her big straw hat, and Denys pulled up, and Aylwin crawled along his back and tied it on. He just flicked his ears and bore it, and then we drove on, and he looked so comical that we roared with laughter.

All this time we had met nobody. I had never been along such a deserted road, and then suddenly, as we were driving close along to the top of a cliff, we heard a shout.

"Hi! Help!"

Denys pulled up at once. We all listened. It came again.

"It's somebody fallen over the cliff," said Denys.

He and Aylwin got out of the cart and ran to the edge and looked over. I was terrified that they would tumble over themselves. And then I heard Denys cry:

"All right! Here we are! Hold on!"

Chapter IV

A Rescue

THEN Aylwin came tearing back.

"Here, you girls, got any sashes? We must make a rope; there's a fellow a good way down the cliff. He has stuck there, can't get up or down—we'll have to get him up."

Lynette and I got out of the cart hurriedly and Puff followed us. Slapper stopped quite contentedly and began to munch some coarse grass.

"We've no sashes," I said in despair. "What shall we do?"

"Tear up your frocks!"

"Oh, we can't, we really can't!" I cried. "Our brand-new dresses—you had better tear up something of yours!"

"What are frocks when a chap's life is at stake!" said Aylwin.

And then Denys came up.

"We must do something at once; a bit of the cliff crumbled away, and he is just hanging to a bush. Here, give us the reins. They look new and strong."

They were. We unbuckled them and the boys went back.

Lynette and I stole up as near the edge as we could, but we could see nothing and Denys waved us back. Then he carefully lowered one end of the reins.

"Tie it round you, and we'll haul you up!"

"It will break," said Aylwin, shaking his head.

Then Denys made us all stand one behind the other with a bit of the rein twisted round our hand, but we got hold of each other as well.

"Now," he shouted, "when I say 'Go,' we'll pull."

There was a moment's silence and I felt my heart thump.

"Supposing," I thought, "he pulls us all over, instead of us pulling him up?" And then I said out loud, for I was very excited:

"O God, make us very strong!"

Then Denys shouted—

"Go!"

And we pulled and pulled for all we were worth. The jerk at first was awful, and it seemed as if we were never going to haul in. But in another minute, a boy's head appeared above the cliff, and then he climbed up. He told us afterwards, that when he let go of his bush, he thought he was going to certain death, and then he found he could seize hold of ledges to help him up, and he found we were strong enough to pull him.

He was a very slight-looking boy about Denys's size, with merry eyes and short crisp brown curls. His coat was torn, and for a moment he turned white and giddy, then he laughed and said:

"I thought I was a goner!"

We were gasping for breath, and then he looked at us in astonishment.

"Have you descended from the skies?" he asked.

"No," said Denys; "don't you see our steed?"

And then we all cried out, for there was no sign of Slapper or the cart.

"Oh, what an old humbug!" said Aylwin. "He's sharp enough to give us the slip when he chooses!"

"It was having no reins, I guess!" said Denys. He looked rather worried. The road stretched away from us empty and bare; there was no sign of the cart anywhere.

"And he has gone away with my hat!" said Lynette, laughing.

The strange boy looked at her.

"Ah!" he said. "And sure I wish I had my own hat to offer you, but it's at the bottom of the cliff long ago. Where do you come from?"

We told him; he was frightfully interested, and then he told us about himself. He had come to live with an old aunt about fifteen miles from us, and he had a tutor, and his name was Patrick Douglas.

"Oirish I am," he said with a merry chuckle; "and I can tell you the Scotch are terrible sober sides. They say I'm making my aunt sit up. She'll be grey-headed, I fear, before her time! Yesterday they were for having me before the magistrate, and of all the conceited, starched-up blunderbusses, give me a Scot Bobby!"

"What did you do?" asked Aylwin with interest.

"Oh, I just gave a whisky-loving farmer a seat in some old stocks near by. He turned out to be our good Bobby's brother-in-law, so I was run in for assault. But it was a storm in a teacup, and I got off."

We were so interested in listening to the boy that we forgot our plight, until Denys reminded us of it.

"Which way has that beast gone? That's the question."

"It's Andy over again," Lynette said, "we do seem very unlucky with our animals."

Denys looked worried, and I was anxious too. The horse wasn't ours, but grandfather's, and if we went home without him we should never be allowed to drive him again.

And then Denys and Aylwin lay flat down on the road on their faces and studied the wheel marks. They're always clever at woodcraft, and very soon tracked the mark of our wheels in the dust.

But Slapper hadn't gone home; he had gone on, and we all agreed we must go on too.

"We're not going home without our steed, if we stay out all night," said Denys.

"Hurrah!" cried the strange boy. "Then my way is yours, and we'll tramp it together."

And so we did, and Pat, as he told us to call him, was so funny and so full of talk that we became the greatest friends with him.

We soon met two men in a cart. We stopped them, but they had not seen Slapper, and I began to get afraid that Puff would get tired and refuse to go on. It was quite three miles before we came to a little town or big village called Nellsolley, and then, to our great relief, we found that Slapper had been stopped as he was quietly trotting through. The man at the inn had got him in the yard. Denys came to me looking very hot and red.

"Of course he expects a tip, Grisel; it's awfully hard lines not to have a penny to give him!"

"I haven't got my purse," I said; "and even if I had, he wouldn't thank us for twopence halfpenny."

"Shall we borrow from Pat? I hear him jingling money in his pocket."

"Oh no!" I cried. "Father always made us promise never to borrow from anybody. And we might not be able to pay it back again!"

Denys shrugged his shoulders.

"This is an exception!" he said.

"Hold fast!" I whispered.

Denys scowled, but he walked away, and I heard him say very grandly to the landlord:

"I'm sure we're awfully obliged—and our grandfather, Colonel Noble, will be too—and you'll hear from him about it—as soon as we get back!"

The reins were very much twisted and stretched, and Pat, in his funny way, put them up to his lips and kissed them before the man fastened them on to Slapper again.

"There for ye!" he said. "And that's for saving my worthless life."

And then he shook hands with us all round and his shake was more like a wring; I almost cried with pain. He said a lot about his gratitude to us, and then he finished up by laughing.

"There's only one person in the wide world who's truly grateful to you, and that's myself, for nobody else would give you a 'thank you' for keeping me alive in the world at all, at all!"

We begged him to come and see us, and he said he had a little sailing-boat of his own, and he'd come along the very next day and take us all for a sail. I felt rather doubtful whether we would be allowed to go with him, but Denys seemed to think it would be all right.

And then we said good-bye and drove back home as fast as we could. We felt we had had quite an adventure, and certainly it was a thrilling moment when we were all pulling Pat up the cliff by the reins, and not knowing whether they would break in our hands!

We got home about five o'clock, and as we were tumbling out of the cart, Denys called to me:

"Here, Grisel, I want you."

"What is it?" I said.

Aylwin and Lynette were racing each other up the backstairs, and Puff following, so I stood still and waited.

Denys looked very grave.

"I think you'd better come with me. It isn't that I'm afraid of going alone, but we're the two eldest, and if I should get a bit hot, you can put the butter on, and cool the old chap down."

"You mean grandfather?" I asked.

"Yes, I must tell him, for he'll have to send the landlord of the inn something. It may open his eyes as to the emptiness of our pockets! And you heard that upstart groom ask what we had been doing to the reins!"

"Oh, all right. I'll come with you, only let us get it over quick!"

I felt rather frightened, for we all consider that we don't know grandfather yet.

So we went through the baize door into the front hall, and asked Jenkins the butler to take us to grandfather. He shook his old head at first.

"The Colonel don't wish to be disturbed."

But Denys said grandly:

"Please do as you are told. Tell him we have particular business to talk over."

I like old Jenkins, so I added:

"Do get him to see us, Jenkins. I know you'll manage it. And we won't hurt him!"

He walked off to the library and then he came back.

"The Colonel will see you."

So we went in. Grandfather was sitting in his arm-chair reading a paper, and I was rather glad that Aunt Isobel was not with him.

"Good afternoon, grandfather," Denys said cheerfully. "Hope you don't mind us coming to see you, but we've been out for a drive, and found a fellow hanging on by his eyelids over a cliff, so we had to haul him up and took the reins to do it, and old Slapper trotted on without us. We found him again. A chap called Pittock, who keeps the inn at Nellsolley, had taken him in for us. He was awfully civil and obliging, but I hadn't a penny in my pocket, so I told him I'd tell you about it."

He paused, for grandfather has a way of fixing you with his eye that rather dries one up.

He didn't say anything at first, and then he spoke very slowly:

"It strikes me you may prove rather expensive young people. Why am I to be told about him?"

Denys got a little red, and then I tried to help him.

"You see, grandfather, we ought to have given him a tip. You would if you had been there, wouldn't you? It was very awkward, so we thought perhaps you could very kindly give us a shilling for him. Not more than that—and if you like only to give ninepence halfpenny, it will be enough, for I have twopence halfpenny of my own."

He looked at me, and then for the first time I saw a twinkle in his eyes, and now I shall never be afraid of him again. I always know, when people have twinkly eyes, that they have kindness inside.

"I should like a few more details, please," he said, and so we told him every bit of our drive.

"Pat Douglas!" he said. "Well, you've wasted no time in scraping up acquaintance with a thorough bad lot! It's a pity you hauled him up. My new reins were worth more than he was."

"Yes, that's what he seemed to feel," I said rather sadly; "he told us nobody would thank us for saving him. I felt so sorry for him, grandfather! And he's such a nice merry boy!"

"A scamp! A worthless scamp! He will drown himself before long in that cockleshell of his. Mind you, I forbid any of you to go out in his sailing-boat!"

Denys and I looked at each other.

"He's coming round to-morrow to take us for a sail!" I said.

"Bless my soul! You don't let the grass grow under your feet! Send him packing when he comes."

"Couldn't we go if we're very, very careful?" I pleaded.

And then he thundered out, "No!" and told us to leave him.

But Denys stood still.

"And what about the chap Pittock?"

Then grandfather put his hand in his pocket and drew out a two-shilling piece. Denys took it and thanked him, and then we went away.

"He isn't half bad," I said.

Denys looked gloomy.

"It's rot not to let us sail, but we'll get the man to come out in the boat, and race him."

We cheered up at that thought, and ran upstairs to tea.

We got Peggy to tell us about Pat when she came in. She knows about everybody and everything for miles round. She told us a Mr. Douglas had married a wild Irish girl, and lived in France after his marriage. When his father died, he came home and lived on his property, but his wife wasn't much liked. She shocked people by things she said and did, and hunted morning, noon, and night. Pat was only three years old when she was thrown from her horse in the hunting-field and killed on the spot. Then Mr. Douglas asked his sister to come and live with him, and he died when Pat was eight. Then his mother's people in Ireland took him, and when his grandfather and grandmother died over there, he came back to his aunt, and has lived with her ever since.

"He's a terrible laddie!" Peggy said. "He's in scrapes most days. He is going to the school where you young gentlemen will be going, for his tutor can't manage him. He seems to have nine lives, like a cat."

"Poor Pat!" I said. "He must feel very sad sometimes when he thinks of all of his relations dying and leaving him. What is his aunt like?"

"Miss Douglas? Oh, she's Miss Douglas, but she's rare fond of the laddie, they say. She and your mother were fast friends, and she'll be over here to see ye before long if I'm not mistaken."

"Is she as stiff and cold as Aunt Isobel?"

"Hush now, for shame on ye! The mistress has a sad heart. None but a lone widder with ne'er a son or daughter to cheer her old age can tell the black days that are waitin' for her!"

"Well, we're ready to cheer her up any day she likes," said Lynette, "but she never comes near us."

I began to think about Aunt Isobel. I wonder if she is really lonely and unhappy. It is so difficult to understand grown-up people. So many of them are grave and quiet, and they never enjoy the things we do. But I wish she would talk to us a little more.

Puff is getting rather troublesome here. He's always trying to get out into the other part of the house through the baize door. We rather enjoy having a part of the house to ourselves, but he seems to think all kinds of things are happening the other side of the door. After tea this evening, I suddenly missed him. The boys and Lynette were trying to do some conjuring tricks out of "Peter Parley's Tales," and I was so deep in a book that I thought Puff was watching them. When I missed him, I went along the passage, and found, as I feared, that the baize door was open. There is a gallery at the top of the big staircase and I looked over and there I saw Puff stumping down the stairs. I was just going to call out to him when I saw grandfather coming very slowly across the hall, and then I was horrified at hearing Puff's shrill little voice:

"Hullo, old gempleum!"

"What are you doing here?" grandfather said gruffly.

Puff put his head on one side and smiled in his sweetest manner.

"I'm—er—coming down to say how d'ye do to you."

He stumped on down, and grandfather just stared at him.

Then Puff went straight up to him and took hold of his coat-sleeve coaxingly.

"They're all so stoopid upstairs, pretending to make eggs lay theirselves in a hat, as if the little chickens would think o' doing such a thing, and I just come away, and if you like me to come into your room, I'll help you smoke a pipe. Our gardener at home let me try lots o' times. And p'raps you've a long white pipe. They smokes bubbles. I can do that best."

He was trotting along by grandfather's side and never stopped talking. They both went into the library, and Puff slammed the door with all his strength.

I thought I had better not interfere. Puff is never shy with anybody, but I never thought he would be friends so quickly with grandfather. I went back to the schoolroom and told the others, but they were too busy with their tricks to care.

"We shall hear a howl soon," said Denys, "and he'll be sent back to us in disgrace."

But that did not happen. Puff stayed away an hour, and came upstairs with shining eyes and red-hot cheeks.

"I'm going to call him Gruffy. He said I might, and I've been sealing-waxing thousands of embelopes, and he gave me his ring, and I tolded him all about myself, and stood on my head for hours!"

"I wish you'd learn to speak true, Puff," I said.

Puff was too excited to listen to me.

"And Gruffy says I can ride and hunt the fox. He doesn't come out in the summer, but next winter I can. And I sawed pictures of hunting gempleums, and Aunt Isobel give me some grapes."

Puff seemed to have got on, as he always does with strangers, and then he got very wild. Denys told him he was suffering from "a swelled head," and we were quite glad when he went to bed.

Now I must tell about to-day, but I shall have to take another chapter, for something awful has happened, and I shall have to begin from the very beginning.

Chapter V

Missing

THIS morning was lovely and hot, and directly after breakfast we went down to the sea. I can't think how people can possibly stay in the house when the sea is close to them outside. I think to live all the year by the seaside is ripping! And that's why we're so lucky to be here. Of course the boys had got hold of Davey the under-gardener, but he wouldn't have the boat out till eleven o'clock—he said he must wait for the turn of the tide. And they were so busy looking out for Pat in his sailing-boat that they didn't half enjoy themselves.

Lynette and I took off our shoes and stockings and paddled. The water seemed very cold at first, but we soon got accustomed to it, and Puff was perfectly happy messing about with sand and seaweed.

When Davey came down to the boat-house and took out the boat, we all got very excited, but the boys couldn't understand why Pat had not turned up. We all got into the boat, and Davey got two pairs of oars—he took one pair himself and Denys and Aylwin took the other between them. It was lovely flying along over the water. We watched the seagulls flying backwards and forwards from the cliffs, and saw in the distance small fishing-smacks, but we couldn't see a sign of Pat in his boat.

"He is a daring laddie," Davey said; "he'll take nobody with him, and a sailin'-boat ought to have two at least to man it. 'Tis a wonder he haven't gone to the bottom long before this."

"Perhaps something prevented him from coming out this morning," I said. "Let us forget him, Denys, and enjoy ourselves."

And then we saw land appear not so very far out at sea, and we asked what it was.

"'Tis the islands. There be four on 'em—"

"Oh how ripping!" Aylwin cried. "We'll go over and explore them. Are they big? Does any one live on them?"

"No, no, they're too small. Some goes over for seagull's-eggs, and there be some rare rock plants on one o' them. But there be too strong a current this time o' year to go near them. 'Tis dangerous at all times for small boats unless the tide be out."

So we rowed along past them, and then, when we rounded a corner of the cliffs, we all cried out at once, for there was Pat's sailing-boat. At least we made up our minds it must be, for it was a very small boat with a very big white sail which was flapping to and fro in rather a crazy fashion.

We shouted, for Davey told us our guess was right, but no Pat answered us. And then as we rowed on, we began to feel as if there was something wrong, for the boat seemed drifting about by itself, and there was no sign of anybody in it. It seemed a long time before we reached it. At first Davey was not going near it, but we made him, and though he pretended at first that Pat was most likely asleep in it, I could see he got more anxious as we came nearer.

We rowed up quite close to it, but there was no sign of any one in it. Davey told us to stay quite still where we were, and then he clambered on board. He shook his head as he took up a great-coat. "He's been here, sure enough, but where he be now is past me!"

[Illustration: WE BEGAN TO FEEL THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG.]

Then we watched him take down the sail, and then he and Denys between them managed to fasten the boat behind ours, and we towed her along. We shouted Pat's name over and over again, for we thought he might have landed on the beach, and his boat sailed off without him.

Davey said he must take us home, and then he would inquire at Miss Douglas's whether Pat had returned home. We didn't like this idea at all, for we wanted to help to look for him, but Davey wouldn't listen to us. And so we came back, and the boys helped Davey to pull up both boats on the beach and tie them outside the boat-house.

And then Denys and Aylwin told Davey that they intended to go over with him to Pat's aunt, and in the end they got Slapper and drove off. But Davey went on his cycle, and of course got there first.

Lynette and I went into the house and told Aunt Isobel about it. But she did not seem at all alarmed, said that Pat was always disappearing and turning up again. Then we had our dinner with Puff in the schoolroom, but the boys did not come back, and we hardly knew what to do with ourselves in the afternoon.

At last, Lynette took Puff across the field to see the farm that belongs to grandfather, and I went down to my favourite little garden. I had got hold of an old-fashioned story-book with mother's name in it, and I wanted to read it quite by myself, away from everybody, and think of her.

I opened the gate along the little winding path until I got to "Rosebud's" grave, and then I stopped quite taken aback, for on the old seat close by sat Aunt Isobel, reading a book!

She looked up when she heard me coming along, and I felt my cheeks getting hot.

"I—I was coming to sit here," I stammered. "I didn't know you ever came here."

It sounded rude, but I hardly knew what to say.

And then she gave me a tiny smile.

"Is there not room for both of us?" she said. "Come and sit down by me. Your mother and I used to sit here together when we were girls. You are very like her, Grisel."

"Oh, Aunt Isobel!" I exclaimed. "Mother was beautiful. I wish, I wish I could think I was like her!"

"She was not very beautiful when she was your age, but your face is the same shape, and so are your eyes and smile."

Aunt Isobel was looking at me very steadily, and I felt almost shy. I sat down, and then I suddenly thought I might ask her about the little grave. So I did, and she told me that it was a favourite doll of mother's, and she was nearly heart-broken when the puppies destroyed it, and would never have another doll afterwards. She was ten years old when it happened, and she used to come down and plant flowers on the grave, and this was always her favourite part of the garden.

And then—I don't know how it was, but I found myself talking quite freely to Aunt Isobel about everything. She seemed more sad than stern to me. And she asked me a lot of questions about us all. I said to her:

"I feel so old now that father has gone away from us, and I am afraid of not doing what he wanted. May I tell you his last words to me? Perhaps you could explain them. We have tried to understand them. The Bible helped us. He said to me—I shall never, 'never' forget his earnest tone!—

"'Grisel—remember—tell the boys—I charge you! Hold fast, Hold fast.'

"You see it is our charge, and we want to do it. We think he meant we must hold fast to all that he had taught us. He was so very good himself, and of course he wants us to be, but I do think it's more difficult for us than grown-ups, don't you? And though we do remember sometimes, we generally forget."

"What did your father teach you?"

Aunt Isobel asked this as if she were thinking of something else while she spoke, and I hardly knew what to say.

"He taught us how to love God first, and put God first, and be faithful and true. He used to say,—

"'Never forget that your souls and bodies belong to the One Who died to save you—' And he told us: 'So many live on the enemy's side, and forget Whose they are, and Whom they ought to serve.'

"I wish I could remember it all better, but I mean to hold fast to it if I can."

"Life is hard on one's memories!" said Aunt Isobel.

I did not quite understand what she meant, but she looked so sad that I seized hold of her hand.

"Oh, Aunt Isobel, do let us love you! We will try not to vex you. And please tell us when you don't like what we're doing!"

She stooped and kissed me.

"Good little Grisel!" she said.

And then she walked away, and I did not like to follow her.

After a little, I went into the house.

And Lynette and Puff came in at tea-time, but the boys were very late. And when they did come, they told us that it was quite awful about Pat; for everybody now thought he was drowned. Lots of men had gone out in boats, and hunted up and down everywhere, but there was no sign of him. And his aunt was in an awful state, and the police, and fishermen, and coast-guardsmen were still out.

"He's gone, there's no doubt of it," said Denys gloomily; "a fellow would never let his boat drift in that fashion, if he could have helped it."

"How dreadful!" cried Lynette. "And while we were laughing and capering over the rocks this morning, he was round the corner shrieking for help, and battling with the waves, and sinking like a stone without a soul—not even a dog—to save him!"

The boys generally laugh when Lynette gets the "heroics" as we call it, but they didn't laugh this time, and I felt all the tears crowd into my eyes. I couldn't believe it. Pat seemed too much alive to be able to die so quickly!

"Does grandfather know?" I asked.

"Yes, we told him. He was walking up and down outside the house when we came back."

"And what did he say?"

"He fixed us with stony eyes," said Aylwin, "and then jerked out:

"'And if you had had your wish, you would have been all at the bottom of the sea with him.'

"So we begged to differ from him there. We said we would most likely have saved his life, for there was nothing wrong with his boat. And the old chap marched away muttering to himself. I expect he would have been jolly glad to get rid of the whole lot of us so cheap. You see, he wouldn't even have had the expense of our funerals!"

"Oh, don't, Aylwin!" I shuddered, for our father's funeral was still in my mind. It seemed so dreadful to talk of it so lightly.

We had a miserable evening; and we all went early to bed.

I couldn't get to sleep for a long while, and then at last I did. But in the middle of the night, or it seemed so to me, I heard a sharp knock at our door. I started up, and before I could have time to be frightened, I heard Denys's voice:

"Grizzy, are you awake?"

"Yes, what's the matter? Is Puff ill?"

"Puff! He's snoring like a grampus. Aylwin and I are going out, so you'll know where we are. There's a light out at sea, and I believe it's Pat."

"Oh, Denys, how can it be? Show it to me."

I was at the window in a moment, and I saw at once a waving, flaring light.

"It isn't a boat," said Denys, in a grave voice, "because the light isn't a lantern or anything of that sort; it's more like a bonfire, and it's on one of the islands!"

"Oh, Denys, of course! Why didn't we think of the islands!"

"We did. Davey and another man went off and landed late in the afternoon, but they could see no signs of him. I made certain he was on them, and told them so, for it seems the old cook had packed him a big basket of provisions, and it couldn't be found on his boat."

"Of course he must have landed them. Oh how lovely to think he may be alive! Denys, dear, do, do let me come with you; it would be such an adventure!"

"Stuff! Of course you can't come. Girls would only be in the way. We're going down to Davey's cottage."

"But it's in the middle of the night!"

"It's hardly eleven o'clock yet."

I gasped!

"Oh do, 'do' let me come."

Denys rushed away. I knew it was no good trying to follow him. It's always the way. Boys get all the fun, and girls have to stick in the corner, and do nothing.

But I was so excited that I woke Lynette up. She locks herself up, we always say with the key inside, when she goes to sleep, for we never can wake her for ages and ages. And she's dangerous to wake, for she hits out, and is awfully cross for a long time. She began now, when I shook her, to call out in her sleep.

"I tell you I didn't do it! Why, the sea is boiling! Let's put the kettle on! And Pat is inside; I told you he was!"

Lynette always talks most dreadful nonsense when she's half asleep. Then she said crossly:

"Leave me alone. I shan't get up. It's much too early."

And then she hit me, and sat up straight in bed, and blinked like an owl.

"What's the matter? Are you ill?"

We always think anybody's ill, if we wake in the middle of the night.

Then I told her, and she got quite as excited as I was. And we put on our dressing-gowns, and watched and watched at the window, till we were sick and tired of watching. And at last, the light went out. It was too far off to see if a boat was getting near it, but a thick mist came over the sea and blotted everything out, and then we began to feel anxious about the boys. But we knew Davey was a very good seaman—for he used to be in the Navy—and I felt sure he would take care of the boys.

And at last we both got so sleepy that we crept into bed again, only just before we did, we knelt down and asked God to make Pat alive and not dead, and to keep the boys safe. I thought we had better do that, as God was the only One Who could save if there was danger, and then we both fell asleep till broad daylight.

I have been writing this all in bits just as I have time. This morning, when we woke, the sun was streaming in at the window, as if it didn't care a bit about Pat and the boys. I rushed into the boys' room at once. I hoped to find them in bed, and ready to tell us about Pat, but their beds were empty, and Puff was still asleep.

When Peggy came to call us, we told her all about it, and asked her if Davey was missing too.

"Why no," she said, looking very anxious, "Davey is cutting the grass in the back yard, and he hasn't been out at night—that I know for a fact. Dearie me, what feckless wicked laddies! They have just gone out by themselves!"

This seemed dreadful news; and then we heard that grandfather's boat was missing. And when we were dressed, we ran downstairs and told Davey all about it. And he was very much put out, and quite positive that Pat was not on one of the islands.

"'Twas most likely the coastguards' lights ye saw," he said. "And now there be two more to be searched for, and the Kornel will be in a pretty stew!"

Lynette and I tore down to the beach. It was very low tide, and we ran along for a long way until we came opposite the islands. And the sun was so hot and shining, and the sea so smooth and blue, that we said to each other that we were quite certain that nothing dreadful had happened.

But we could see no signs of any boys or of the boat, and Davey came along dragging a big boat after him.

I pointed out to him just where we had seen the bonfire, but he didn't seem as if he believed us.

"I'll be just rowing across to see once agen if the laddie be there."

Then we besought him to take us with him. Lynette coaxed, and I entreated with all my soul, and at last he said we might come with him. We forgot all about our breakfast, and if it had not been for the thought of the boys, and wondering where they were, we should have enjoyed ourselves most awfully. Davey let us take one of the oars, and we pulled rather awkwardly at first, but much better farther on. And then we began shouting and cooee-ing as we got near to the island, and I shall never forget the relief it was when, in a little cove close to the island, we caught sight of grandfather's boat.

"There you see! The boys are here!" cried Lynette triumphantly.

"Yes they be," said Davey crossly, "and I'll gie them a bit o' my mind, to go carryin' off the Kornel's boat, and leading me such a dance for nothin'!"

"I wonder if they have found Pat," said Lynette.

I was afraid they had not, for there was no sign of them, and we thought they must be hunting for him on the other side. There was no beach where the boat was—Davey said it was high tide, and our hearts sank when we saw there was no possibility of landing. There was a straight high cliff right up above the boat, but it was tied to an iron staple in the cliff that must have been put there to be used. Then we called again and again, but the waves were making such a noise as they dashed against the rocks that it quite drowned our voices.

"Is there nowhere to land?" I asked Davey.

And he shook his head.

"We'll go round to the caves," he said.

And then we rowed round the island for a good way, and then suddenly, as we were calling, we heard an answering shout. For a moment we stared about, but could see nobody, and then I caught sight of Denys's head just peeping out of a hole in the cliff. He looked so funny that I could hardly help laughing. We rowed right up underneath him and Davey told us he was in the caves, which slope upwards—and the sea was washing in at the bottom of them.

"I've spent a night there," said Davey. "You're quite safe if you climb high enough."

"Are you all safe?" I cried out to Denys.

And Lynette cried: "Is Pat with you?"

Denys's head suddenly disappeared, and we waited breathlessly to see it again.

Chapter VI

A Long Sunday

THE next head that appeared was Aylwin's, with a broad grin upon his face. I knew instantly that they must have found Pat.

"Pat is with you?" I cried, and Aylwin's head nodded. The voice of the sea quite drowned our voices.

Davey gave a kind of chuckle. "Might have known it, so we might; he'll always turn up again, will that limb of a boy!"

"But why didn't you find him?" Lynette asked a little indignantly.

Davey shook his head.

Then we heard Aylwin shouting: "We're in here till the tide turns, unless you can fling us a rope!"

Now I knew how daring the boys are. I knew if we did, they would squeeze themselves through that hole, and we would see them dangling in mid-air by the rope, so I told Davey not to say he had got one at the bottom of his boat.

"The tide is going out," said Davey, "but it will take a couple of hours yet for them to be able to get out of that cave."

Then Pat's head appeared at the hole. "How's yourselves?" he shouted.

"How are you?" Lynette cried back.

"Hurt my leg! Had to lie low. Go home to your breakfasts. We have the boat and will come as soon as ever we can!"

But we waited till Denys's head popped out again, and when he shouted the same thing we thought we had better go back. Davey said Pat's aunt must be told that he was safe, so we rowed back, and I felt as if a great heavy lump had been lifted off my chest. It was so glorious to have them all alive and jolly!

We weren't scolded for going out so early when they heard the good news. Even Peggy beamed with delight. Davey rode off to tell Miss Douglas and all the village people, and Aunt Isobel came into the schoolroom to hear all about it, while we had our breakfast.

We went down to the beach directly afterwards, and Puff said:

"I do think God might hurry up the sea, and tell it to move quicker."

It seemed really very slow at going out. But gradually the rocks began to show themselves, and then the seaweed, and then, after a very long time, we saw a little boat in the distance, and it came nearer and nearer. And at last, the boys came in sight. And we danced and shouted like savages, and took off our shoes and stockings, and waded into the sea to meet them.

Pat was as funny as ever, but he looked very white, and had a bandage round his ankle. Denys carried him on his back right up the beach, for he couldn't walk, and then Aylwin took a turn, and as we went up to the house, we heard all about it. Pat had planned a lovely picnic on the island. He landed there on the way to us to leave his big basket of provisions and to get the cave ready for us. He said, one day, there was a horrid dead fish in it which made an awful smell, and he didn't want anything of that sort to be there when we came. He was a little longer than he meant to be, and then, to his horror, he saw that his boat had slipped her anchor and was drifting away. He was in a hurry to get to a high part of the cave to shout for help, when he had an awful tumble and cut a great gash in his leg. It wouldn't stop bleeding, and it made him sick, and he thinks he must have fainted.

When he came to himself, he was afraid of moving lest the bleeding should burst out again, and he was also in too much pain to move. He saw the tide was coming in, and knew he was caught and would have to stop there, so he dragged himself slowly to the high and dry part of the cave, and there he lay down and ate a good meal and then went to sleep, he said, for hours. I suppose that was when the men were hunting for him, but they stupidly never looked in the cave. Pat says the villagers think it is haunted, and will never go right in.

When he woke up, he tore some strips off his shirt and bound up his leg very tight, and then he could hop about. And when it came on to be dark, he thought what a fool he was not to make a fire. So he made it at last, and that was how Denys and Aylwin saw it, and they got over to him all right, for it was low tide. But when they tried to bring him down to the boat, his leg burst out bleeding afresh, and by the time they had bound it up, and he began to feel fit to hop down to the beach, they found the horrid tide had turned, and was washing into the cave. So they had to wait till the morning, and then they saw us coming. It all sounded so natural that I thought how stupid we were not to find Pat before.

When we got to the house, Aunt Isobel came running out, and Miss Douglas, who had just arrived. She had ridden over. It seemed funny to me to see a grey-haired lady on a horse, but everybody seems to ride here.

Pat waved his hand airily to them.

"Sorry am I to have turned up again to plague you," he said.

But Miss Douglas looked as if she wanted to hug him.

"Oh Pat, you'll be my death one day," she said. "I had quite made up my mind that you were lying fathoms deep below the sea."

When Aunt Isobel saw how hurt Pat's leg was, she had him carried by Davey into one of the empty spare rooms, and then the doctor came and sewed up his leg, for he had a great gash in it. We thought it was awful to actually sew up his flesh with needle and cotton. I had never heard of such a thing before. And then we were told that, as he had to keep quiet and not move his leg, he was going to stay with us for a few days, and of course we voted it great fun. Miss Douglas fussed in and out of his room all the day, but she went away before it got dark.

In the evening, Pat came into the schoolroom and lay on the couch there. We had a big fire, and we all sat round it and told ghost stories; and Pat's "yarns," as the boys called them, were simply ripping!

"It's queer," he said, just before we went to bed, "that you should have come to my rescue two days running. I hope you'll get into difficulties next, and sure I'll get you out of them! So as to be quits!"

"I suppose it's being by the sea that brings so many dangers," I said.

"No," he said with his merry laugh, "it's just meself, born to be the plague of my belongings! If anybody can get into a scrape, it's I that do it."

"It's very interesting and exciting," said Lynette. "I do hope you'll go on doing it. We do love adventures."

And when we came up to bed Lynette said to me:

"Isn't Pat a darling, Grisel? I'm so glad we know him."

"Yes," I said, "he's so merry that I can't help liking him, but Lynette, he uses such words—almost swearing—I can't bear to hear him do it!"

"You mean when he says 'Oh Lord!' and 'May the devil take me.' He doesn't mean anything by it, he only rattles the words off in his stories—"

"Puff will be copying him," I said. "He always copies big boys."

"Then we must give Puff a whacking if he does, and stop it," said Lynette.

Nothing ever troubles Lynette.

* * * * *

To-day is Sunday. It hasn't been at all a nice day. To begin with, it has been a regular wet day. Aunt Isobel said we couldn't any of us go to church, and that seemed to turn it into a week-day. She told us we must stay quietly in the schoolroom, and that of course brought difficulties at once. First we were all quiet. I got Puff into a corner, and began to read him some of "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the boys and Lynette got some books from the book-case.

But about eleven o'clock Pat hobbled in and took possession of the sofa, and then there was no more quiet. Puff first began to humbug about the room and throw cushions, and then Pat said he would show us some conjuring tricks, and they were so interesting that I forgot it was Sunday, and enjoyed them as much as the others. Then he brought out of his pocket a rather dirty pack of cards, and said we must have a game. I said at once we never played cards, but the boys looked uncomfortable. Pat laughed. He has a very wheedling way with him, and when I added hastily:

"It's Sunday," he laughed all the more.

"You're not one of these sour-faced Scotchies, Grisel," he said. "What's a poor invalid to do if you can't amuse him? Doesn't it say in the Bible you must give a leg up to any poor ass who's down in his luck? But girls are all the same. Now you shut those grey eyes of yours, and go on reading your Sabbath book. And we'll have our quiet game without interfering with you."

Then I turned and looked at the boys.

"Hold fast!" I said, and then I ran out of the room.

I felt miserable when I got to my bedroom. I'm a regular out-and-out coward. I couldn't stay in the room to be laughed at, and so I came away, and I left them, and knew that perhaps they would all be breaking Sunday, and playing cards. I looked out of the window, and began to wish we had never come here. There seemed nobody to help us do right, and it was so easy to do wrong. And then I remembered that God was with us just the same, so I knelt down and asked Him to make the boys hold fast, and remember father's teaching. And I felt a little better when I got up from my knees, and a little braver too.

So presently I crept back to the schoolroom. There was the most awful noise going on, but they weren't playing cards, they were acting stories out of the Bible and making Pat guess what they were. I found Lynette rolling and shrieking on the floor, and Puff and Aylwin were gambolling about her on all fours, and Denys was standing on the mantelpiece looking on.

I heard in a minute or two that Lynette and Denys had both stood on the mantelpiece, and that she was Jezebel. And Puff had come by riding on Aylwin and said, "Throw her down," and that Denys had pushed her down, and then Aylwin and Puff pretended to be the dogs devouring her, and Lynette showed me afterwards huge bruises on her elbows and knees where she fell. Pat was in fits of laughter. And I didn't know what to say or do.

"We've been so good," he said to me; "we've postponed our game of 'Nap' till to-morrow."

He pulled hold of me and made me sit on a chair close to him.

"I really don't know whether this is any better," I said in despair. "We've never spent a Sunday like this before."

Lynette got up, rubbing her elbows dolefully.

"We've never been kept in from church," said Denys, a little defiantly. "Aunt Isobel treats us as if we're china under glass!"

I gave a big sigh, and Pat mimicked me at once.

"Old mother Grisel!" he said. "Do you always try to be good? Or do you only keep it for Sundays?"

I looked at him. Somehow, though his voice and words are teasing, I never feel afraid of Pat. I think it is his bright soft blue eyes.

"Oh, Pat!" I said. "If you had just lost your father whom you adored, wouldn't you try to do what he would wish?"

"He won't know anything," said Pat reflectively.

"Oh, I hope he doesn't know what we're doing to-day," I said, feeling a great lump rising in my throat. "It would break his heart if he knew you were going to make the boys play cards and gamble. I heard you talking of halfpenny points!"

Pat laughed.

"Don't you worry, little mother. Your boys can look after themselves. Why did you call out 'Hold fast' when you ran away?"

"It was father's charge to me," I said firmly. "He told me before he died to tell the boys to hold fast, and I shall always say it to them when they forget. I say it to myself every morning. I forget quite as much as they do."

"Hold fast to what?"

"We looked it up in the Bible. Father didn't finish his sentence, but I'm sure he meant to what he taught us, and to what God says we're to do in the Bible."

"Oh, sakes alive! Sure, if we're to do all the Bible tells us, we'd better quit the earth straight away."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because nobody could live on Bible lines. Now doesn't it tell you to give to every one who wants to borrow? We have some awful wandering beggars over here. Supposing if everybody gave them everything they asked for, why, like cormorants, they'd swallow our all!"

"You need not pick out the unlikely kinds of things to do," I said.

Then Denys came over to us. He was smoothing down the back of his head with his hand—a little trick of his when he's not quite sure of himself.

"Well, Grizzy," he said, "how are we going to get through this wet Sunday? I'll never stand another like this—never!"

"I think, if you were to read the lessons to us, Denys, and a collect or two, it would be a kind of church at home, and we could sing the chants and a hymn or two."

I was rather nervous as I spoke, because of Pat, but, to my relief, he said:

"It'll be a thundering good idea, and then all the wrinkles will go, little mother, won't they?"

In a moment, they all took it up. Lynette and Aylwin made a kind of reading-desk and some pews, and the only thing Denys would not do was to put on the nightdress Lynette brought him for a surplice.

"I'm not a parson," he said, "and I won't ape one."

We all settled down; even Puff got grave and quiet, and Pat lay quite still till we began to sing, and then he joined in with such a lovely voice that I almost held my breath to listen to him.

And then we sang ever so many hymns one after another, and when our church was over, it was dinner-time. I felt quite happy again, and I know Denys was too, he pulled hold of me in the passage as he was going to his room to wash his hands.

"Grisel, we nearly let go this morning, didn't we?"

I nodded.

"And next time," he added quickly, "I hope I shall be the one to call out 'Hold fast.'"

We didn't say any more.

The afternoon was quite fine, and we all went for a long walk along the cliffs, for the tide was in. Aunt Isobel sat with Pat to cheer him up, she said. But I think he cheered her up, for he talked and she listened, and there's nobody that can talk like Pat. He simply makes you die with laughing every minute.

It seems that in this part of Scotland the church that Aunt Isobel goes to is only held once a day, in the morning. And nobody thinks of going anywhere else. As it was fine, several visitors came to see Aunt Isobel, and some who arrived in a motor stayed to dinner. They sounded very jolly downstairs, and Lynette was very cross at Peggy telling us we were to stay quietly in the schoolroom, as there was company.

"We might as well be in jail," she said.

"Oh," I said, "I'm thankful we can be here by ourselves."

After tea, we got round the fire, and then somehow we began to tell Pat about our Empire League. He was awfully interested.

"I'm half inclined to be a soldier myself," he said, "but I'm all for old Oireland. I don't know that I have a passion for England."

"Oh, but you must," I cried. "We are all bound up together. You're a loyal Irishman, aren't you?"

Pat half winked his eye at me.

"I don't mean to know or like any men, when I grow up," I said stoutly, "who aren't loyal subjects to their King and country."

"And," burst out Lynette, "Grisel and I have quite made up our minds not to marry anybody but soldiers."

"How many for each of you?" said Aylwin, with his funny chuckle.

"Sure," said Pat, "with that shining prospect before me of weddin' either of you, or both, I'll enlist as a drummer-boy right away!"

"Don't joke," I said. "Aren't you fond of and proud of our British Empire, Pat?"

"I'll be so, if you'll teach me," he said, folding his hands and casting his eyes up to the ceiling till we could only see the whites of them.

And then I gave up talking, for I saw he wouldn't be serious, but I hoped he would listen another day.

And now I've been writing in this diary, and we're just off to bed. This has been a dreadfully long Sunday; I do hope we shall never stay home from church again.

Oh dear, oh dear! I did hope we had got through the day all right. But there's the most awful row going on, and we're all in it, and it has all happened in the last half-hour, and Aunt Isobel is furious. But I must write about it to-morrow.

Chapter VII

Pat Leaves Us

IF only we could stop and think sometimes! We do all our worst scrapes all in a minute, and this is what happened last night, and of course, being Sunday, it made it a hundred times worse.

Puff was the one who began it. When I told him to come to bed, he ran away. He's often like that, and you can't reason with him. He rushed along the passage and got through the baize door, and of course I went after him.

The big hall downstairs was lighted up, and there were two gentlemen talking and smoking outside the drawing-room door. They went into the smoking-room after a few minutes, and I leant over the railing that goes round the gallery and looked down at the oil-pictures on the walls. They always interested me, for they were portraits of our mother's ancestors.

Suddenly I heard Lynette's giggle, and I turned round to find her and the boys, and Pat, all out on the landing. Pat was supporting himself with two sticks. Then Pat pointed to the broad balustrade on the top of the banister.

"I had a splendid slide down there once," he said.

In one second Aylwin was astride, Denys followed, Lynette, and then Puff, and—I can't explain it—the thought of Sunday went quite away—and I swung myself up. It did flash across me that I could keep Puff from going over, but it was all in a minute, and the feeling of sliding down quicker and quicker was just lovely. It was all over in two minutes, but Aylwin didn't jump clear at the bottom. We all fell in a confused heap on the floor, Puff gave a yell, and in falling, Lynette grabbed hold of Jenkins's legs. He was unfortunately passing close to the bottom of the stairs with a tray of glasses. He came to the ground with a crash, and the glasses too.

And the drawing-room door suddenly opened, and when we picked ourselves up, there was grandfather, and Aunt Isobel, and several ladies and gentlemen.

I felt as if I would like the earth to have swallowed us up, and grandfather was furious. He swore, and I have never heard such swearing before.

We said we were very sorry, and crept upstairs.

But Aunt Isobel came after us, and she scolded me and Denys most dreadfully. Of course we were the eldest ones, and were much too big to do it, and we couldn't excuse ourselves.

And when I at last went to bed, I felt perfectly miserable. Lynette would keep laughing and chuckling at the remembrance of Jenkins going down. He forgot his proper voice and shouted dreadful words, which was swearing, I suppose, but grandfather said something much worse. And Jenkins has a great big bruise on the bald part of his head this morning, and Peggy told us that the cut-glass which was broken was worth twenty pounds. Aunt Isobel said she would telegraph to the governess to come and take charge of us at once. She said to me:

"I did think, Grisel, that you were a good little girl from your talk. Remember, it is actions, not words, that speak loudest. I am bitterly disappointed in you."

And I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. How could I! Oh how could I!

Pat was the only one who kept out of disgrace, but he was really the one who put it into our heads to do it.

He came over to me this morning while I was waiting for breakfast. I was standing by the window and wishing for father again, and feeling deadly miserable.

Pat clapped his hand down on my shoulder.

"Cheer up, Madam Dumps!"

"How can I, Pat?" I said, choking down a lump in my throat. "When I think of what we did on Sunday, and Aunt Isobel's face of horror and disgust, I just feel I can never be happy again! And father told us to hold fast; why, I'm letting everything go as quickly as I can!"

"I should say it was a case of holding fast last night! Why, I heard you say it to Puff as you started on your downward career!"

I checked my inclination to laugh. Pat's face is like the sun; he always seems to warm you up, and I began to feel better.

"Well," I said with a big sigh, "it was a black day yesterday, but we've a fresh one in front of us, and I'm going to try to be an angel of goodness to-day."

"Sure! So am I," said Pat fervently.

And then he tucked my arm in his, and when the others trooped in to breakfast, we were standing up very straight and stiff together with two of the large breakfast-plates fastened behind our heads and Pat said:

"Behold St. Patrick and St. Grisel waiting to give the sinners their blessing."

Then we nearly had a regular shindy, for they all got hold of the plates and began to shy them at us. So I took mine off very quickly, and made them be quiet; at least I begged Denys to keep order, and he did.

"Do let us all try to keep out of scrapes to-day," I said.

But after breakfast, Pat began getting out his cards again, and I felt in despair. It was a lovely morning, and it seemed too awful for the boys to be staying in and trying to gamble. I almost wished that Pat would go home, and then I seized hold of Denys and got him out of the room.

"Oh, Denys," I said, "aren't you going to 'hold fast'? I shall never be able to make you, and it will be dreadful if Aylwin gets to play for money. Father hated card-playing; you know he did."

Denys looked uncomfortable.

"We won't play for money," he said; "it's awfully dull for Pat not being able to get out."

"But he can. We can have the trap and drive him, and you know he won't play unless there's money in it."

"Well, I'll see if he'll come out for a drive."

"And if he won't, do hold fast, Denys!"

Denys straightened himself.

"All right. Don't you worry."

He went back to the schoolroom, but I don't know what happened, for Peggy came up to say that I was to go downstairs to Aunt Isobel.

I found her in her own nice sitting-room. She looked very grave when she saw me.

"I hope you're ashamed of that shocking exhibition last night, Grisel. Are you two big girls accustomed to behave like tomboys?"

"We're awfully ashamed and sorry," I said. "I can't tell you now what made me do it. Lynette is always a mad-cap. It only takes me like that very very seldom. I suppose it was being shut up all day, and trying so hard to do what was right for such a long time when it was all so difficult. Then suddenly I forgot everything and let myself go. I suppose it's something like elastic being stretched out too long, and then it goes snap. I felt stretched out all day yesterday."

There was silence. Then, after a moment, Aunt Isobel said:

"Your governess will be here to-morrow. Until she comes, I wish you and your sister to be in this room with me. The boys are to remain in the schoolroom upstairs. I wish you to be kept quite apart for to-day. Go upstairs again now and fetch your sister down. I have some needlework here that you can help me with. I am making some flannel petticoats for our old alms-cottage women."

I felt quite desperate.

"If I leave the boys, they may do 'anything,'" I said; "and Puff will get awfully out of hand. It's Pat, I think, you had better send him home if you want the boys to be good."

"You can't blame Pat for your behaviour last night; he was not with you."

I was silent. What could I say? And felt very mean in blaming Pat.

"As it happens," Aunt Isobel said, "Pat is going home this afternoon. His aunt is coming over for him."

I went upstairs very slowly. The boys weren't playing cards; they were talking eagerly. Puff was trying to climb out of the window, and Lynette was busy painting a most hideous paper mask; she's very good at them, and is always making them for Puff.

I told them what Aunt Isobel wished, and Lynette was very angry.

"I won't come, Grizzy; you can go back and tell her I won't. I'm a pattern of perfection to-day. I shouldn't think of doing anything so vulgar as sliding down the banisters. Tell her my hair is tidy, my hands and nails as clean as hers. I am not even crossing my legs, or tipping my chair back. And nothing will induce me to leave the boys."

"You must come at once," I repeated. And then I hauled in Puff from the window-ledge, and fastened the window. "Denys, you must look after Puff, and don't let him get into mischief."

"You go down, both of you," said Pat, "and we'll find a way of fetching you up. I give you my word, you'll both be up in half an hour!"

Lynette wanted a good deal of coaxing even then, but she followed me down at last. And Aunt Isobel gave us two flannel petticoats to make, and we sat on two chairs and wondered what was going on upstairs.

Aunt Isobel went to her writing-desk and began to write some letters. Presently we heard a little bustle and noise outside, and then Jenkins came in.

"If you please, mem, Peggy wishes Miss Grisel to come upstairs quick, for the little master have cut his thumb frightful and won't let nobody touch it but her!"

I sprang up.

"Oh, it's Puff, aunt; I must go."

I darted out of the door and upstairs. Lynette tried to follow me, but was called back.

I dashed into the schoolroom. Peggy came along with a basin of water.

"He won't let me get near him, the naughty laddie!" she said.

And then I saw Puff lying back in a chair with the boys round him, and yelling for all he was worth, and his handkerchief seemed covered with blood.

Aylwin took the basin hastily out of Peggy's hands, and almost pushed her out of the room.

"We'll manage now, thanks." He locked the door after her.

I knelt down by Puff.

"You poor little man, how did it happen?" I asked.

Puff had his eyes tightly shut and his mouth wide open. When he heard my voice, he jumped up, and he and the boys burst into a roar of laughter.

I found his white handkerchief was-smeared with red paint, and that his thumb was not cut at all.

I felt quite bewildered.

"Now we have to get hold of Lynette," said Denys. "Why didn't she come with you?"

"Oh, boys," I said, "you must have told Peggy an awful whopper! It isn't right! And I must go back at once."

"No, you won't," said Pat, taking the key from Aylwin and pocketing it. "You'll stay here. Now, then, I'll do the rest."

He limped out of the room and down the stairs, locking the door on the outside, and taking the key with him.

I heard from Lynette, afterwards, that he appeared with a very scared face:

"Grisel says she has some sticking-plaster locked up in a drawer, and you have the key. Come on, quick!"

"And when you have given her the key come downstairs again," said Aunt Isobel very shortly.

Upstairs flew Lynette, and when she, in her turn, was locked inside by wicked Pat, she enjoyed the joke. But I couldn't laugh, though I hate the boys thinking me a prig.

"Didn't I tell you I'd fetch you up again?" said Pat triumphantly.

"Oh, you can do anything if you tell lies," I said.

Pat got very red in the face.

"Do you call meself a liar?" he said, and his eyes blazed.

But I stood my ground, for I was angry with Pat, and I was afraid he would be teaching Puff to be deceitful.

"You can't say you didn't tell a lie, for you told two, and it spoils fun to get it like that. Now, Lynette, come on down. And if you boys send down a message to say that the schoolroom is on fire, I shan't budge from my seat. Where's the key, Pat? If you don't unlock that door, I'll ring the bell."

"Grizzy is in a stew," said Aylwin, chuckling.

Pat looked at me defiantly.

"If you were a boy, I'd have you out, and give you a thorough good licking, sure I would, by—"

I put my hand on his arm.

"Now, Pat, forgive me; where's the key?"

He flung it on the floor.

I picked it up and Lynette followed me downstairs without a word.

"How did he cut himself?" Aunt Isobel asked.

And I answered straight out: "It was a joke of the boys to get us upstairs again."

Aunt Isobel looked at me sharply, then went on with her writing, and did not say another word.

Lynette and I were allowed to go upstairs to our schoolroom dinner. And the whole time we were eating it, the boys were arguing about a lie, what it was, and what it wasn't. Pat says a practical joke isn't a lie; he says to deny something you've done wrong is the only lie he knows of. Aylwin says a lie that makes a person suffer who ought not to is the worst lie of all.

Denys said a lie of any sort is not possible to a gentleman, but a joke like Pat's is more fun than earnest.

"I know a boy at school who tells the most awful yarns," Denys said, "but we don't call them lies, because we know what he is."

"Yes, but when there's something awfully important going on, you wouldn't trust his word," I said. "And I should like to feel I could trust Pat's."

"If you can't trust me, slay me!" said Pat, jumping from his seat and handing me a big knife. Then he unbuttoned his waistcoat and pretended to expose his heart.

"Here, strike, cruel maiden! Rather the cut of cold steel, than the cut of such words and looks!"

I laughed as I threw down the knife.

"Oh, Pat, you're such a nice boy that you really mustn't tell crams even in fun!"

And then none of us said any more.

Lynette and I went out for a drive with Aunt Isobel after our dinner. And when we came back, Miss Douglas had just arrived in a big old-fashioned carriage, and Pat was saying good-bye to everybody, for his aunt wouldn't stop to tea. And just before he went, he got me into a corner of the hall, and said:

"You're a game little creature, Grisel. And if you'll take me in hand, and give me a grand licking with your tongue on occasions, sure I'll make a grand man by and by!"

I didn't know what to say, so I was silent, and then I blurted out:

"I do want to like you, Pat, but I want the boys and all of us to 'hold fast,' and you mustn't keep us from doing it."

"May the de—"

I put my hand across his mouth.

"I hate you when you speak like that!"

"Ah, sure, what words can I use to make you feel I'm in raving stark earnest that I'll take a grip with you all, and hold fast through all the ages to come?"

He wouldn't be serious, but we parted friends. And when he had gone, the house felt quite dull and empty.

This afternoon Lynette and I got ready for our governess. The schoolroom gets disgracefully untidy, the boys are simply wonderful for bringing things into it, but they never take them away. They took Puff down to the beach with them directly dinner was over, and we were longing to be with them, but Peggy besought us to tidy up. She said she couldn't do it, and she would be sorry for the poor governess to arrive into such "chay-oss." I've spelt it as she pronounced it. Peggy tries to use very grand words sometimes.

Aylwin had brought an old crow's-nest in, and left it on the couch. Denys had littered half the room with chips and shavings trying to make a boat for Puff. Puff had upset his paint-box, and never picked it up.

In one corner of the room, the housemaid had collected all our things from the day before, and we had to sort out the heap. There was the long ribbon seaweed that is such a good barometer when hung up, and some stockings that Lynette had got tired of mending, and some shells, and a tangly ball of string, and Denys's fishing-tackle, and two dirty jerseys of the boys', and a pair of sand-shoes, and some pictures we had cut out of a magazine for a scrap-book, and a dead mouse that we had caught in a trap and forgotten to bury, and some fir-cones, and ever so many more things that had to be sorted and put by. When we had finished at last, we were hot and sticky and dirty, and rather cross.

Lynette threw herself on the couch.

"Good-bye to all fun now! Grisel, I know I shall hate this governess of ours. I'm bound to do it, for she is bound to see that we behave ourselves. She will expect us to be always clean and tidy, and polite to each other, and it will be:

"'Take your elbows off the table. Hold your head up. Don't giggle. Say "Thank you" when I tell you of your faults. Look grateful when I scold you for your good. Don't frown, don't fidget!'

"Oh, can't you hear her? It's a beastly shame to have somebody with us every minute of the day, and never be free from her."

"Perhaps she'll have a day off sometimes," I suggested. "I should want to get away from my pupils sometimes if I were a governess."

"She won't. No such luck for us. How I wish I was a boy. They always have a much jollier time than girls. They'll be away at school in a couple of days, playing football and hockey, and having paper-chases, and sports and concerts and all kinds of lovely things. If we went to school, we would have the same. But a governess spoils everything."

I wandered round the room, just putting a few tidy touches here and there. I felt very downhearted.

"We must do our best to like her. Father would like us to get on, and we are growing up, Lynette. Think of the time when lessons are over, and we shall have a dear little house all to ourselves, and you and I will do just as much cooking as we like, and the boys will come home and say how jolly well we do them."

"They'll be away at a war, perhaps, if they're soldiers," said Lynette, getting up from the sofa as she spoke. "The worst part of this governess is that we shall have her listening to everything we say. We'll never be alone again. Come on, Grisel, let us wash our hands."

"Wait a little. Here's all this paste left from our scrap-book. Can't we use it up on anything?"

As I looked round, I saw that in climbing to get out of the window, Puff had torn a piece of the wall-paper off. It was over a damp spot on the wall, and there was a long strip hanging down.

So we got a chair, and I got up, and Lynette was handing me the basin of paste, when somehow the chair slipped from under me, and down I fell, and caught hold of Lynette, and she tumbled with me, and that nasty basin of paste spilled itself all over the top of us. We were laughing at the most awful mess we were in, when the door opened suddenly, and there was Aunt Isobel, and behind her was our governess!

Now wasn't that a horrible hick for fate to play us? We had meant to have our hair brushed, and be so awfully spick and span that Aunt Isobel would be quite pleased to show how tidy and clean we kept ourselves. And our heads were now half covered with paste, and our faces too. We were simply a disgrace to be seen! And I wished, as story-books say, that the floor could have opened and swallowed us down out of sight.

Chapter VIII

Our Governess

"HERE are your pupils, Miss Garton. I am ashamed of their appearance, but you will see how they need somebody to take them in charge."

I looked up in confusion, and put my sticky hands behind my back.

"If you had come ten minutes later, Aunt Isobel," I said, "you would have found us in beautiful order. We've been working hard all the afternoon to get tidy, but we're just in the middle of an accident."

"Yes," Lynette chimed in, "and it's all spoilt now. I wish we'd gone off with the boys and left the horrid old room to tidy itself."

Miss Garton was a surprise to us. She was very tall, and—yes, I can use no other word—very beautiful. She had large dark eyes, and fair hair, and a sweet smile. She looked round the room and not at us, and that was nice of her, for it gave us time to dab our faces with our handkerchiefs and get some of the paste off, and then she said very pleasantly:

"I think our schoolroom is delightfully tidy, and what a dear old room it is!"

"It was our nursery when we were small," Aunt Isobel said, and the sad soft look came into her eyes that I love to see, for it reminds me of mother.

Miss Garton walked to the window to look-out.

I picked up the chair and paste-bowl, and got a cloth to wipe up the mess on the carpet.

Aunt Isobel left the room, and Lynette dashed away to tidy herself.

Then Miss Garton turned round and smiled upon me.

"Are you the eldest of my pupils?" she asked.

And then she took my hand in hers, and gave it a little pat.

"Are we going to be friends, Grisel?"

I don't know why, but a lump came in my throat, and the tears to my eyes. It suddenly seemed to me that I had been struggling alone for ages to do what was right, and now somebody kind and loving and strong was going to help me and take me by the hand.

I looked up at her.

"Oh, Miss Garton," I said, "don't believe we're as bad as we look. We all want to be good, and to hold fast to what father taught us, but accidents, and misfortunes, and all kinds of horrid things happen to put us, and keep us, in disgrace. And Lynette is 'such' a dear when you know her. And Puff is his darling funny self, and the boys—they really are the nicest boys I've ever seen. We didn't come here with bad characters. Our village was quite fond of us; I don't know how we're so bad here. It is such a stiff cold house! I think—I think it is because we feel that nobody cares for us now. It makes us feel nothing matters!"

I couldn't help telling her all that, for I hoped she would understand.

And she did. She laughed a happy little laugh.

"Why, Grisel," she said, "it isn't very long ago that I was your age, and I had six brothers. Do you think I don't know what boys are like, and girls too? I think it's splendid of you staying in on this fine afternoon to tidy up this dear old schoolroom. I don't think I should have done it! Now do you think you could show me my room?"

I went along the passage at once. I was awfully happy, and when I had shown her her room, I dashed into our bedroom and cried out to Lynette:

"She's splendid, lovely, stunning! Oh, I love her with all my heart!"

Lynette was tying her hair up with her best Sunday ribbon. She looked at me with merry eyes.

"She's caught you very cleverly, Grisel!"

"She hasn't caught me at all. You must have liked her, Lynette. You couldn't help it!"

"I'll wait and see," said Lynette, nodding with her provoking smile. "A governess is bound to be beastly, as I told you. She may be smiling outside, but inside she's chock full of rules and proper ways!"

We did not see Miss Garton till tea-time, and then the boys were back. We hastily told them what she was like. They pretended it had nothing to do with them, but I noticed that both Denys and Aylwin sneaked away and washed their hands and gave themselves a brush up before they came to tea, and they don't always do that—not when we're alone. I always clean up Puff for every meal. I simply have to, for his hands get quite smelly.

Miss Garton came to tea, and Denys shook hands with her with his best manners.

"Hope you don't mind us grubbing with you, but we're off to school very soon, and then the girls will have the schoolroom to themselves."

"But there's me left," piped Puff in his shrill tone; "I'm not a girl."

"You're less than nothing," said Lynette scoffingly—"hardly a cipher; a shortsighted person wouldn't see you."

Puff began to snort and stammer.

"I shall have my tea with grandfather. He doesn't think I'm not nothing. He tells me to come and see him whenever I like. I shall tell him it's nothing but girls up here, and he and me will live in his room togever."

"Shut up, young snorter!" said Aylwin. And he gave him a kick under the table, which Puff dodged, and poor Miss Garton got it instead.

"We seem rather cramped for room under our table," she remarked.

Aylwin got scarlet.

"Sorry, but Puff is such a little beast when he gets on his high horse!"

After this we got on better. She talked quite naturally, and asked us lots of questions about the walks, and the sea, and before we came to bed, the boys acknowledged that she wasn't half bad, and I liked her better and better every moment. And now these last few days before the boys go to school, she seems to think of and do everything for us all. She took Peggy's work-basket from her, and darned the boys' stockings like lightning. I came into the room this afternoon and found her still at it.

We had been in the boys' room helping them pack. Denys pretends he is an awfully good packer, but he isn't, for he doesn't fill up the corners as he goes, and then crams all kinds of things down in them at the end. I came away at last, for they were all making the most awful noise, so that I got quite a headache. And the schoolroom looked so quiet and peaceful that I was quite glad I had left them.

I got hold of my work-box and asked Miss Garton to let me help her. I told her I used to do all the stockings at home, but Peggy had taken them away from me here.

"And that's what is the matter," I said. "We're all treated as if we are troublesome, naughty children, and must be kept out of sight. Aunt Isobel hardly comes near us, and we only see grandfather about once or twice a week. And I have always felt—well, responsible—and useful, and able to understand the reason of things, when father or the aunts talked to me. Here, we lose heart, at least I do. There's nothing to do for others. We have it all done for us. Lynette used to mend her own clothes, and we used to sit together and do our mending and tell stories. Here she never sits still at all. She gets wilder than ever, and throws her torn clothes down on the floor for Peggy to pick up and take away. I'm getting nearly as bad myself."

Miss Garton handed me a pair of Puff's stockings to mend, and she nodded as if she understood me.

"Yes, I know how you must feel, Grisel, but you must pull yourself together. Why should you leave off being helpful and useful? You tell me you want to hold fast to all that your father taught you—"

"Yes," I broke in, "but it's too difficult; I can't do it. And we quarrel so, Miss Garton. We never used to."

Tears crowded in my eyes. I really had come away from the boys because they told me I was a "double-distilled prig and fusser."

"Well, I know what will put matters right," said Miss Garton cheerfully.

"Do tell me."

"Yes, I will. We will have a talk together on Sunday when the boys are gone."

I think Miss Garton said this because Lynette dashed into the room. That's the worst of it. There are such a lot of us, and only one room to live in; we get in each other's way, and we can't get alone. Though this is quite a castle compared with our old home, yet it seems cramped and small, because we have only one corner of it. We're all right out of doors, but we have had a lot of wet weather and storms, and it's indoors where we quarrel.

"Puff has gone off down the front stairs to grandfather's study," said Lynette. "I told him he wasn't to. Denys boxed his ears because he checked him, and first he roared and cried, and then he said he'd go and tell grandfather. He simply took no notice of me. Puff is getting awful."

"We all are!" I said gloomily. "Let him go to grandfather; he won't mind. He spoils Puff!"

"I think perhaps poor Puff has too many managing him," said Miss Garton quietly. "I haven't begun to try my hand yet. You don't give me a chance. I have been watching you all. You mean well, but the sweetest temper would be spoiled by so much snubbing and managing!"

Lynette stared at Miss Garton. She stood by the window pulling the blind up and down, for she never can keep still.

"Do you think we're unkind to Puff?" she asked.

"I think you're rather hard upon him."

This was a new idea to both of us. I looked at Lynette, and she looked at me. Then she flew out of the room. I knew she had gone to tell the boys what Miss Garton had said. In a minute or two, we had Puff stamping along the passage, and then in they all came. Puff's eyes were sparkling. He was triumphant.

"I told of you, and grandfather says I shan't see you again till the summer holidays, and I'm glad of it!"

"You little sneak!" said Aylwin. "You ought to go to school. You'd get it hot for blabbing!"

I was just going to scold Puff for telling tales, but I stopped. I felt that we were always scolding him, and that Miss Garton was right.

"We're packed," announced Denys. "Peggy is pretending to finish, but we've left her nothing to do, and now we're just going to have a run along the beach."

"Let the girls go with you," said Miss Garton cheerfully, "and Puff can stay with me."

Puff looked at her doubtfully, but she smiled at him. And we left him settling down happily at the schoolroom table with his box of soldiers.

As Lynette and I were putting on our coats and hats I said:

"Miss Garton always lets us be free when she can. That's why I love her."

"Yes, she isn't like most governesses," said Lynette. "I wish she would make Puff not quite such a little beast."

Then we joined the boys and we had a jolly time. Just before we came home to tea, I was alone with Denys, and I was glad of it.

"Shall you be in the same form as Pat?" I asked.

"How can I tell! I rather hope so. He'll keep us lively."

"But, Denys, you won't let him—I mean, you will remember—" I stopped. Somehow it was getting very difficult to speak to the boys.

Denys looked at me and laughed.

"Go ahead, Grizzy! Rub it in."

"Oh, Denys!" I cried miserably. "You used to help me. You know what father said; we used to try to serve God together, and now we all seem to be living—just anyhow. I know I don't 'hold fast' any better than you do. I get angry, and do everything I oughtn't to do. But I thought at school you might help Aylwin by reminding him, and don't do what Pat wants you to do, if it isn't right. I do feel that father sent his message by me—that's why I 'rub it in,' as you call it. And I don't want to be a prig."

Tears were crowding to my eyes. I turned my head quickly away so that Denys shouldn't see them.

"All serene!" Denys said cheerfully. "You've given us the charge, Grizzy, and it's our look-out if we keep it. We don't want to be nagged at, you know. I shall remember 'H.F.' It's a pity—"

He stopped short, then waved his cap with a flourish.

"I'm inspired, Grizzy. Halloo, Aylwin, you're wanted! Now, you girls, go on off home. We've private business on."

He pulled hold of Alywin, and they both tore off along the beach in the direction of some fishermen's cottages. We were most indignant.

"It's too bad of them," said Lynette; "let's go after them."

"No," I said; "they don't want us. They'll only be furious if we follow them."

"Well, we'll just have a paddle," suggested Lynette; "it will be lovely; come on."

"It will be too cold," I said, "and Miss Garton expects us back to tea at five, and it's nearly half-past four now."

I showed her my watch—mother's watch, which I always wore.

She made a grimace, but I got her to go back to the house with me.

I thought that Denys had run off from me to stop me preaching at him, and I felt rather down about it.

When we got up to the schoolroom, Puff met us with a radiant face.

"I've been hearing jolly stunning stories, much better than yours, Grizzy. Me and Miss Garton are fren's."

"I'm glad to hear it," I said.

Miss Garton was out of the room.

"And she says I can spell wonderful. We've had a game with letters. She's got a funny little box of them, and we jumble the letters up and make words."

I sat down by the fire. The schoolroom always looks comfortable at tea-time, and I felt very tired. Puff, seeing I was rather silent, put his head on one side and looked at me, just like some saucy sparrow.

"Are you feeling good or evil, Grizzy?"

I couldn't help laughing.

"You're a little imp, Puff! I'm feeling sorry that the boys are going away."

"I'm not. I'm glad, orf'lly glad. I'll have a room to myself, and they shan't kick me out of bed in the morning any more. And grandfather is going to give me a pony. I told him to, and he said 'yes.' And he says I may call him Gruffy!"

"Oh, Puff, I don't believe it!"

"He did; he said he liked it. And when I get tired of living with girls and womans, he told me to come downstairs to him. And Gruffy and me like to be together. It's ripping!"

Puff's confidences stopped here, for Peggy came in with the tea.

The boys were a quarter of an hour late for it, but they came to the table looking full of mystery, and we couldn't get out of them where they had been.

"We've been having some rites performed," Aylwin said importantly.

"You've been ducked in the sea by somebody!" guessed Lynette.

They shook their heads. After tea, they went down to grandfather's study. He wanted to see them, for they would be going to school early the next morning before he was up, and it was a good-bye visit.

They came upstairs delighted.

"We took our pills, and then had the jam," said Denys, opening his hand and showing us a golden sovereign.

Aylwin had the same. I think it was noble of grandfather to give it to them. I expect he lectured them. Aylwin said he did, but they didn't tell us what he said.

It was just before they went to bed that they showed Lynette and me what they had been doing.

Denys rolled up his shirt-sleeve, and there, above his left wrist, was tattooed in blue—"H.F."

Aylwin had the same. I was simply delighted. Lynette didn't know at first what it was. They had got an old sailor to do it for them. We knew him well, for he had shown us his arms, which were just like scrap-books. They were simply covered with letters and pictures!

"Oh, I think it is splendid!" I said.

"Branded for life!" said Aylwin. "I don't know that I quite like it, only nobody will know what it means—that's a comfort, and if they ask I shall say 'Happy Fellow.'"

"Or 'Happy Fool,'" Lynette suggested.

I couldn't laugh. I thought of them going about, not only at school, but afterwards when they're grown-up, and in the army and in battle, and when they're older still, and perhaps fathers of families and getting old men, always able to look at their arm and read "Hold Fast." How it will remind them!

"Why, Grizzy, what big eyes!" said Denys. "Now there'll be no need of jawing at us ever again. You'll have lost your vocation."

"Oh!" I said, drawing a long breath. "I think it is lovely."

And then I made up my mind at once that I would be tattooed too. Lynette seemed to guess my thoughts.

"We must all be done!" she said. "Of course we must. Hurrah for 'H.F.'! 'H.F.' for ever!"

And then she danced round the room, and the boys began to romp after her, and dragged me into it. And when Miss Garton came in, she said she could hardly see us for the dust we were making.

The schoolroom carpet is old, and hasn't been very well swept, we say. But Peggy says we would raise the dust out of polished floors-which of course is nonsense!

When Miss Garton heard about the boys' arms, she told us that we must not copy them.

"Why?" Lynette asked. "It is to make us good, and keep us good, without any jawing from anybody!"

"You are girls," said Miss Garton. "When you are grown-up, you will have bare arms in evening dress, and the letters would look ugly."

"But we shouldn't mind," I urged; "it would be cowardly of us if we minded telling people what it was."

"Let the letters sink into your hearts and stay there," she said; "that is the best place for them."

I was awfully disappointed. Lynette pursed up her mouth and said nothing. I felt she wouldn't give up the idea, but we began talking about other things, and nothing more was said about it.

Now the boys have gone. It is dreadful without them. But we're starting lessons, and I see that Miss Garton means to keep us hard at work. She says we're dreadfully backward for our ages, and I know we are. She makes all our lessons very interesting. Even Lynette likes learning with her. And Puff is as good as a little cherub. The only troublesome thing about him is that he is always running off to grandfather. Grandfather encourages him to do it. Sometimes they walk up and down the terrace together, and Puff is the talker and grandfather the listener. He always calls him Gruffy now, and grandfather calls him the Bantam.

Miss Garton had to go downstairs and fetch him once. He ran away in lesson time, and she is very punctual and particular about the hours we work and the hours we play. The day after the boys went, Lynette and I went out into the garden by ourselves. I went to my favourite seat in the old rose garden. Lynette came with me, but she soon rushed off, and then I saw nothing of her for more than an hour. When she came into the schoolroom, she was limping.

"The boys never told us it hurt!" she said.

"Oh, Lynette, you've been tattooed on your leg!" I cried.

She nodded, then pulled down her stocking, and on the front of her foot she showed me a large "H.F."

I did not know whether I envied her or not.

"You can't show it to people," I said.

"Well, why should I? We don't go about and brag about it, do we? We don't shout out, 'Hold Fast' all day long."

"No. But you won't be reminded of it like the boys are. You will only see it when you go to bed and when you get up."

"That's just the time I want to see it, when I say my prayers. It belongs to them. It's religious."

Lynette always puts things so funnily.

"I want to be reminded of it in the middle of the day," I said.

"So shall I be when I paddle in the sea," said Lynette. "And anyhow, I'm branded with it for ever and ever."

Then I began to want it too—but I didn't like the idea of having it on my foot. Miss Garton was not pleased when she heard of what Lynette had done.

"I thought I had reasonable girls to deal with," she said. "You are too independent for your age, Lynette. Must I positively forbid you, Grisel, to have your foot done?"

"No," I said, "if you say I'd better not, I won't. But I can't help liking the idea of it very much."

Miss Garton smiled at me.

"There's a romantic touch, isn't there, Grisel? But I'm perfectly certain that if anybody is branded with those words upon her heart and brain it is you! So there is no need to stoop to such a common device as this to keep it ever in your mind."

Lynette didn't like the idea of a "common device" at all. "It isn't at all a common thing to be tattooed," she said; "it's quite uncommon. There's only one man in this place who could do it for us. And you might go to hundred of towns in England, and search all over London, and even then perhaps not find a man to do it for you. I was simply longing to have a rose marked on me. He said roses were the flowers for English girls, and the thistle for Scotch ones. But it hurt rather, and I told him the letters were quite enough for this time."

I tried to comfort myself with Miss Garton's words, but I didn't feel quite happy till Sunday came. We went to church in the morning. It was a lovely day, almost like summer, so bright and warm, and in the afternoon Miss Garton took us for a walk. Lynette and Puff got two of the dogs which are kept in the stable, and when they were racing on over the common with them, Miss Garton began to talk to me. She does speak so beautifully, and understands before you can begin to tell her what your difficulties are.

"I know, Grisel. I think it is almost the hardest time in our lives when we are very young, and we try to be good. There are so many rules and regulations which get broken through sheer forgetfulness. And we get misunderstood, and are sometimes accused unjustly, and then we lose heart, and feel it is no good to go on trying."

"Yes," I said eagerly, "that's just it. We all want to 'hold fast,' Miss Garton. If you talked to us when we were quiet and sitting down, we would all say we meant to do it every day, but things always happen to make us excited, and then we forget. And here it does seem more difficult. There were always father's sermons at home on Sunday, but here—well, you can't say the sermon this morning could help us. I tried and tried to listen, but I simply didn't understand a word of it.

"Father preached just like he talked. Everything was easy at home, we used to go and see the old villagers and read to them when they were ill, and I had a Sunday class of tinies, and teaching them to be good, helped me to be, myself. And then we could always go and tell father anything that worried us.

"Father is expecting us to hold fast to all he taught us, and God expects it too, and I don't believe any of us will do it, not really properly! I suppose when we are grown-up, it will be easy, but perhaps we shall have forgotten all about it by that time."

Miss Garton gave her little low laugh, which I always love to hear.

"Poor little Grisel! And, in addition to your own efforts after goodness, you feel you are responsible for all the rest. I wonder if you have caught your father's true meaning? Shall I tell you what I think would make your upward path very easy?"

"Oh, do! I feel nothing will make it easy now."

"Do you remember this little verse in the Bible:

"'I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee'?"

"I think I've heard it," I said.

"Now don't you think, if you know that the Lord has taken hold of your hand, that you will let Him help you through your difficulties? 'Hold fast' to His Hand—that is what you have got to do. It is hard to 'hold fast' to righteousness, but if you hold fast to a strong and loving Hand, you will be like a little child led by its father. You won't be allowed to tumble."

I could not speak. It seemed to come upon me in a flash that I had forgotten all about God's help, and that I had been trying to be good without Him.

"Oh, Miss Garton," I gasped, "that is lovely!"

I couldn't say more. A lump came in my throat. I thought that Jesus Christ had been holding out His Hand all this time for us to hold fast to, and we had been pushing it away, and trying to be good by ourselves.

Lynette and Puff came racing back, and we had no more talk, but it was quite enough. And when we got home, I went off to my favourite place by mother's doll's grave, and then I sat down on the seat and I looked up into the blue sky, and I asked God to take my hand into His and keep it. I felt that I put it into His, and that He took it. And I never had such a happy Sunday as I had after that. I longed to tell Lynette about it, but I had to wait till we came to bed.

When I told her, she didn't seem much impressed.

"You mean, Grisel, that father meant that we should hold fast to Jesus Christ's Hand. How do you know he meant that?"

"It's all so easy if we do, Lynette; we shall 'hold fast' to all the rest if we have our hand in His. We shan't feel as if it is too difficult to be good, and He will remind us if we forget."

"I have my foot," said Lynette, turning down her stocking at once, and looking thoughtfully at the "H.F." upon it.

"That won't help you," I said; "oh, Lynette, do think seriously!"

"I am," she returned, "but I wasn't born so good as you, Grisel. God put a special little bit of goodness in you, when He made you. And He either forgot, or didn't think me worth the trouble? I never, never, 'never', if I live to be a hundred years old, shall be as good as you, and—and I'm not sure that I want to be."

"I'm not good," I said quickly, "but I want to be."

"Yes, that's just the difference. You always want to be; I only want to be sometimes. But now Pat and the boys are away, there is nobody to lark round with, and we shall be 'very' dull and 'very' good till they come back."

I said no more, but I knew that Lynette could never be dull, and I doubted if she would be "very" good till the summer holidays. I knew I should not.

And the very next day she got into an awful scrape.

Chapter IX

My Godmother

WE have dinner at one o'clock in the schoolroom with Miss Garton. She gives us till three o'clock to play about in the garden or do what we like, and then we begin lessons again. Puff always goes to grandfather in the study for part of the time. Grandfather goes to his study after he has had his lunch, and nobody but Puff goes near him till four o'clock, as he is always supposed to be resting then.

On this day I went down to the Lodge, for Mrs. Craig who lives there has a darling baby, and I love to nurse it.

I stayed there till ten minutes to three, and then I went back to the schoolroom.

There was no sign of Lynette, and Miss Garton asked me where she was.

"I don't know," I said; "I asked her to come down to the Lodge, but she seemed in a hurry to get away by herself somewhere."

Miss Garton did not wait. She never fusses. But when half-past three came, and then four, and no Lynette, she left me to do a French exercise, and went out of the room to look for her. Puff did not do lessons in the afternoon. But he had come back to the schoolroom and was playing contentedly with his railway engine in the corner.

He had not seen Lynette since dinner. I began to wonder whether she had gone to the beach and got drowned. And I'm afraid I made a lot of mistakes in my French exercise, for I was so busy thinking about her.

And then I heard an awful row in the hall, grandfather's voice loud and angry, and Aunt Isobel's, and Miss Garton's. I could not resist running out and opening the baize door at the end of our passage.

Miss Garton was coming up the stairs with Lynette, who was very red in the face, and looked in an untidy mess. Her hair was sticking out in all directions, and she had some dirty sticky streaks all down her face and dress.

Miss Garton did not bring her into the schoolroom, but told her to go to her bedroom and make herself tidy and stay there for the present. Then she came into the schoolroom, with a grave set face.

"What has happened?" I asked.

"Finish your lessons," Miss Garton said quietly. "You have only half an hour more."

I felt cross. I was being treated like a small child.

"Isn't Lynette coming to do hers?" I asked.

Miss Garton made no answer. It was the first time she had behaved like a governess, and I didn't like it. I was simply dying of curiosity to know what Lynette had been doing, and I began writing my exercise anyhow from sheer temper, and then suddenly I remembered the Hand that was holding me, and felt ashamed of myself. When half-past four came, my exercise was done.

Miss Garton seems like a wizard sometimes. She put her hand on my shoulder.

"You had a bad five minutes, Grisel, didn't you? I am so glad you got the better of it. Lesson time is lesson time, but now it is over, I am quite as anxious as you to know what possessed Lynette to act so foolishly. I have judged it wiser to leave her to calm down. She will have to do her lessons after tea. She was hiding in a cupboard in your grandfather's room. I am going to her now. I dare say she will tell you more fully about it than she will me, but I must speak to her alone first."

Then she left the room.

"Puff," I said, "were you with grandfather this afternoon? Was Lynette there too?"

"O' course she wasn't. Gruffy was there by hisself, and me and him talked, and he showed me a set of funny little men with faces, for chess."

I couldn't understand it. And when Lynette came to tea with rather a shamed face, I couldn't ask her about it before Miss Garton and Puff, and she was kept at her lessons till she went to bed, and it was only when we were in our room together that I heard the whole story.

"I really only did it for fun, Grisel. It wasn't wickedness, but I am always so unlucky, and everything happens wrong on purpose with me. You know how often we have said we should like to hear what Puff says when he's with grandfather. Well, just as I was eating my pudding at dinner, the idea came to me, and I went straight away and did it as soon as ever I could. It was to hide in the study and hear them talking."

"But that isn't quite nice—it's eavesdropping!" I said.

"Bosh! As if Puff would ever say anything we ought not to listen to! Well, I had to be quick to get in there before Puff and grandfather, and I was rather flurried because there seemed nowhere to hide. I th