‘WELL, chickens,’ said Mrs Osbourne, as she came into the schoolroom about half-past four, ‘and what have you been doing all afternoon? Did you think I had gone off altogether and left you?’

The gas had not been lit, but the room looked warm and cosy by the light of a blazing fire.

Claude looked up from the hearthrug, where he was looking at pictures in the ruddy glow. ‘The others are up in the top room, making a boat,’ he answered, ‘and Isobel’s asleep on the sofa.’

At the sound of her name the little girl roused herself and sat up rubbing her eyes.

‘Why, Isobel,’ said her mother, ‘what is the matter with you? You are not generally a sleepy-head.’

‘I lay down with a story-book after dinner, and I must have gone to sleep,’ said Isobel vaguely. ‘I suppose it was the party.’

She seemed to have forgotten all about her tumble, and the explanation made her mother laugh.

‘It is a good thing that it is holiday time, missy,’ she said, ‘if you are going to sleep half the day after every party. I think we will have to send you to bed two hours earlier on Monday night, for I have just got an invitation for all of you to go to Mrs Seton-Kinaird’s on Tuesday. She is going to give a very fine party indeed, and I am sure you will enjoy it. There is to be a conjurer and performing dogs.’

‘Oh mother!’ cried Claude in great excitement, springing to his feet, ‘and am I asked too? I have never seen dogs perform in my life.’

‘Yes, you too,’ said his mother, smiling, ‘and Ronald and Vivian. Mrs Seton-Kinaird asked you all to come.’

‘To come where?’ asked Ralph, who had just entered the room, followed by Ronald.

‘To a party with performing dogs and a conjurer,’ replied Claude; ‘and, Ronald, you are asked too, and Vivian. Isn’t it a pity you are going home?’

‘Perhaps they needn’t go,’ said Isobel. ‘Couldn’t you write to Aunt Margaret, mother, and beg her to let them stay until Wednesday?’

‘Perhaps I may,’ said Mrs Osbourne, smiling.—‘What would you say to that, eh, Ronald? Or do you think that you will have had enough of London by that time, and be wearying to get home?’

‘Indeed I won’t,’ said Ronald eagerly. ‘I would love to stay, and so would Vivian, I know, if mother will let us. It is awfully good of you to ask us.’

‘Where is Vivian?’ asked his aunt, noticing his absence for the first time. ‘Ah, here he comes,’ as Vivian came running up the back stairs.—‘Why, you are quite wet, my boy,’ she said in surprise as she laid her hand on his shoulder. ‘You surely have never been outside in that pouring rain?’

‘I ran out into the summer-house to see if I had not left my knife there,’ said Vivian, wriggling from under her grasp. ‘It was not very wet, auntie, and I ran the whole way.’

‘All the same, you must go and change your coat and your stockings,’ said Mrs Osbourne, running her hand rapidly over his clothes, ‘and your knickerbockers too, I think. Don’t run out in such rain again, dearie, for you are quite damp, and there are a lot of colds about. I don’t want you to catch one, for I have heard of more gaieties for you. But run off now; you shall hear all about it when you come back.’

‘There is a splendid party at Mrs Seton-Somebody’s,’ cried Claude, always eager to be the first to tell any piece of news, ‘and we are all invited, and mother is going to write to Aunt Margaret to ask if Vivian and you can stay.’

Fond as he was of parties, Vivian almost hoped that his mother would insist on Ronald and him returning home on the day that had been originally fixed, for the thought of the stolen pistol still lay like a load on his mind, in spite of the fact that it was no longer in the house, and he felt that he would never shake the load off until he was safely home, and it was left behind him—left hidden in the hollow branch which Isobel had shown him that afternoon.

For that was the true errand that had taken him out in the rain, although he had glanced hastily into the summer-house for an excuse, in case any one asked him what he had been doing, and then he had seen an old cap lying on the floor, and wrapped it round the pistol to protect it from the wet. Then it had been an easy matter to slip behind the summer-house, in the growing dusk, and jump up on the branch, and pull the old duster out of its place, and drop the bundle into the hole, and then close it up again, and run back to the schoolroom with the easy lie about the knife upon his lips.

‘And indeed it was not a lie at all,’ he reasoned to himself, as he slipped off his wet clothes and tried to rub out the marks which the wet branches had left on them, ‘for I had lost my knife, and I did look into the summer-house, and it might have been there;’ and with a feeling of relief that the parcel was now safe from any risk of discovery by the servants, he went into the schoolroom and joined the others at the tea-table.

Saturday morning brought a reply to Mrs Osbourne’s letter, and loud were the exclamations of delight when she announced at breakfast-time that Aunt Margaret consented to the two boys staying a couple of days longer.

Even Vivian felt glad for the moment, for the party on Tuesday night bade fair to eclipse any that even Ralph had been to as yet; and now that the excitement of their own Christmas tree was over, the Eversley children could talk of little else.

Mrs Seton-Kinaird was a rich young widow who lived in a large old-fashioned house at the top of the Heath. She had had two children, a boy and a girl, but the girl had died of consumption, and the boy was very delicate; and his mother, haunted by the fear that someday she might lose him as she had lost his sister, indulged him more, perhaps, than was wise. His lungs were weak, and as soon as the Christmas holidays were over she intended to shut up her house and go to Egypt with him, in order to avoid the cold spring months at home.

The doctors, indeed, had advised her to go away in December; but Cedric, as the boy was called, hated the idea. He was tired, poor little man, of being dragged from one foreign country to another in search of the health that did not come, and he had cried so bitterly at the prospect of spending Christmas away from home, that his mother had given in to him, and had promised him this birthday party, agreeing to have performing dogs, or conjurers, or any novelty that he liked, so long as he made up his mind to the prospect of the journey afterwards.

The children at Eversley knew him slightly. Claude and Isobel often met him on the Heath, walking with his mother or his governess; but the friendship did not grow rapidly, their boisterous health and high spirits rather alarmed him, for he did not care to rush all over the grass, playing hide-and-seek among the bushes, while they, on their part, soon grew tired of his sober face and peevish, complaining ways.

‘He’s a silly, fretful boy,’ said Isobel emphatically, when, after listening to a detailed account of the beauties of Mrs Seton-Kinaird’s house, and the wonderful playroom full of marvellous toys that Cedric possessed, Vivian had asked her what kind of boy he was. ‘He is always grumbling about something. Just now it is because his mother and he are going away to Egypt, to live on the Nile in a boat, and do no lessons. Catch me grumbling if Dr Robson said that I was to do that. Only think of having no lessons to do, and seeing the Sphinx and the Pyramids!’

‘Ah, but my girlie, you are quite well, and don’t know what it is to be always tired and have bad headaches, as poor Cedric has,’ said Mrs Osbourne, who had overheard the last remark. ‘It is one thing having a holiday when one is strong and able to enjoy it, and another thing to have to take one when one is too tired to find pleasure in anything.’

Isobel coloured at the gentle tone of reproof, and thought rather rebelliously that if her mother only knew how her head was aching at that moment, or what queer little jerks of pain had been running up and down her back for the last two days, she would not have spoken like that, but would think her a brave girl for running about and making so little fuss. Then, next moment, being a conscientious little mortal, and having a habit of looking her faults straight in the face, she owned to herself that she was only making no fuss because they were all going to the Hippodrome that evening with father, a very great treat indeed, for Mr Osbourne was generally too busy to pay much attention to the children, and she knew that if she told her mother how funny she felt, she would probably make her stay quietly at home and go early to bed.

So she held her tongue like a Spartan, although her head grew worse and worse, and went to the Hippodrome along with the others. But by that time the pain was almost unbearable, and the glare of the electric light hurt her eyes so badly that sometimes she could hardly help crying out. She was glad to change seats with Ralph, and sit close to a pillar which he declared spoilt his view, and lean her burning head against it, for it felt nice and cool, and its shadow shielded her eyes from the light.

If her mother had been there she would have noticed the poor child’s discomfort; but being, as she had laughingly said before they started, too old for entertainments of that kind, except when she was needed as a chaperone, she had gone to sit for a few hours with poor old Miss Osbourne, whose bronchitis did not as yet show any signs of improvement. As it was, when the merry party returned full of excitement at all the wonderful things they had seen—the performing seals, and dancing goats, and the cyclist who rode a bicycle along a tight-rope with his hands tied behind him, the little girl’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes passed unnoticed; and when, next morning, she felt too sick and queer to get up, and had to confess how badly her head ached, her mother did not feel at all anxious, thinking that the excitement and the late hours had been too much for her, and that a day spent quietly in bed, with nothing to eat but bread-and-milk, would soon put matters right again.