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+Project Gutenberg's The Happy Adventurers, by Lydia Miller Middleton
+
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+Title: The Happy Adventurers
+
+Author: Lydia Miller Middleton
+
+Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6901]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on February 9, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks,
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS
+
+[Illustration: YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME]
+
+The Happy Adventurers
+
+BY
+
+LYDIA MILLER MIDDLETON
+
+
+
+To Alastair and Margaret
+
+"I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincing
+you How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in
+the building trade." --Kipling.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER
+
+I.    HOW IT BEGAN
+II.   THE BUILDERS, OR THE LITTLE HOUSE
+III.  THE FORTUNE-MAKERS, OR THE CHERRY-GARDEN
+IV.   THE TREASURE-HUNTERS, OR THE DUKE'S NOSE
+V.    THE GOLD-DIGGERS, OR THE MIRACLE
+VI.   THE GRAPE-GATHERERS, OR WHO WAS MR. SMITH?
+VII.  THE AERONAUTS, OR THE FATEFUL STONE
+VIII. HOW IT ENDED
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+"YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME"
+
+"I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM HERE TO MY
+BROTHER"
+
+GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA
+
+DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY
+
+THEY STOOD AND WATCHED THE "KANGAROO" FOR SOME TIME
+
+THERE THEY WERE-OH, HOW MOLLY LONGED TO KEEP THEM!
+
+
+
+THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+How it Began
+
+
+"Dear, dear!" said Grannie, "woes cluster, as my mother used to
+say."
+
+"Let us hope that this is the last woe, and that now the luck will
+turn," said Aunt Mary.
+
+Mollie did not say anything. She had smiled the Guides' smile
+valiantly through the worst of her misfortunes, but now she was so
+tired that she felt nothing short of a hammer and two tacks could
+fasten that smile on to her face any longer. So she closed her eyes
+and lay back on the cushions, feeling that Fate had done its worst
+and that no more blows were possible in the immediate future.
+
+Grannie fetched an eiderdown and tucked it cosily round the patient,
+who looked pale and chilly even on this fine warm day in June, while
+Aunt Mary tidied away the remains of lotions and bandages left by
+the doctor.
+
+"The best thing now will be a little sleep," said Grannie, looking
+down with kind old eyes at her granddaughter, "a little quiet sleep
+and then a nice tea, with the first strawberries from the garden. I
+saw quite a number of red ones this morning, and Susan shall give us
+some cream."
+
+Mollie opened her eyes again and tried to look pleased, but even the
+thought of strawberries and cream could not make her feel really
+happy in her heart; for one thing, she still felt rather sick.
+
+"That will be lovely," she said, as gratefully as she could, "and
+now I think I _will_ try to go to sleep, and perhaps forget things
+for a little while--" and, in spite of all her efforts, a few tears
+insisted upon rolling down her cheeks as she thought of home, and
+Mother's disappointment, and the dull time that lay before her.
+
+Mollie Gordon's home was in London, in the somewhat dull district of
+North Kensington, where her father, Dr. Gordon, had a large but not
+particularly lucrative practice, and her mother cheerfully made the
+best of things from Monday morning till Sunday night. There were
+five children: Mollie and her twin brother Dick; Jean, Billy, and
+Bob. They lived in a large, ugly house, one of a long row of ugly
+houses in a dull gardenless street, where the sidewalks were paved,
+and the plane trees which bordered the road were stunted and dusty.
+In the near neighbourhood ran a railway line, a car line, and four
+bus routes, so that noise and dust were familiar elements in the
+Gordons' lives--so familiar, indeed, that they passed unnoticed.
+
+A month ago Mollie had been in the full swing of mid-term. Every
+moment of her life had been taken up with lessons, games, and
+Guiding; the days had been too short for all she wanted to get into
+them, and, if she had been allowed, she would certainly have
+followed the poet's advice to "steal a few hours from the night",
+but, fortunately for herself, she had a sensible mother whose views
+did not coincide with the poet's.
+
+And then in the midst of all her busyness, just when she thought
+herself quite indispensable to the school play, the hockey team, and
+her Patrol, she fell ill with measles. She was not very ill, so far
+as measles went, but her eyes remained obstinately weak, and so it
+was decided that she should be sent down to the country to stay with
+Grannie, do no lessons at all, and spend as much time as possible in
+the open air. Luckily, or unluckily, according to the point of view,
+none of the other children had caught the disease, so that Mollie
+went alone to Chauncery, as Grannie's house in Sussex was called.
+
+Chauncery was an old-fashioned house standing in a beautiful garden
+surrounded by fields and woods. If Mollie could have had a companion
+of her own age, she would have been perfectly happy there, in spite
+of frustrated ambitions and the trial of not being allowed to read;
+but the very word "measles" frightened away the neighbours, so that
+no one came to keep her company, and she sometimes felt very lonely.
+Nevertheless, she had accommodated herself to circumstances, and,
+between playing golf with Aunt Mary, driving the fat pony, and
+learning to milk the pretty Guernsey cows, she managed to "put in a
+very decent time", as she expressed it. Till this third misfortune
+befell her.
+
+"First measles, then eyes, and now a sprained ankle," she sighed to
+Aunt Mary on the morning after her accident; "what _can_ I do to
+pass the time? It's all very well for Baden-Powell to talk, but I
+can't sing and laugh all day for a week; it would drive you crazy if
+I did. I have smiled till my mouth aches. What shall I do next?"
+
+"You poor chicken!" Aunt Mary exclaimed, with the most comforting
+sympathy. "You have had a run of bad luck and no mistake! We must
+invent something. You can't read and you can't sew--how about
+knitting? Suppose we knit a scarf in school colours for Dick, or a
+jumper for yourself to wear when you are better? I could get wool in
+the village. That would do to begin with, till I think of something
+better."
+
+Mollie agreed that it certainly would be better than doing nothing,
+though hardly an exciting occupation for an active girl of thirteen.
+So the scarf was set agoing, whilst Grannie read aloud, and the
+first half of the first day was got through pretty well. But after
+lunch the day darkened and rain began to fall in heavy slate-
+coloured streaks, pouring down the window-panes and streaming across
+the greenhouse roof, changing the bright daylight into a dismal
+twilight, and blotting out all view of the garden. It was depressing
+weather even for people who were quite well, and poor Mollie might
+be forgiven for finding it hard to keep up her spirits. She was
+tired of knitting, tired of being read aloud to, and tired of
+writing letters to her family.
+
+"How would you like to see some photographs of your father when he
+was little?" suggested Grannie at last. "He was the most beautiful
+infant I ever saw." She opened a cupboard door as she spoke, and
+presently came back to Mollie's side with an arm-load of photograph-
+albums, the kind of albums to be found in country houses, filled
+with carte-de-visite photographs of old-fashioned people, all
+standing, apparently, in the same studio, and each resting one hand
+on the same marble pillar. The ladies wore spreading crinoline
+skirts, and had hair brushed in smooth bands on either side of their
+high foreheads; the men wore baggy trousers and beards; family
+groups were large, and those boys and girls taken separately looked
+altogether too good for this world.
+
+Mollie smiled at the picture of her father, a fat, solemn baby in
+his mother's arms. She thought, but did not say, that he was a
+remarkably plain child, and congratulated herself that she took
+after her mother in appearance; though, of course, Father, as she
+knew him, was not in the least like that infant. At the rest of the
+photographs she looked politely, but it was hard work to keep from
+yawning, and at last her mouth suddenly opened of itself and gave a
+great gape.
+
+"That's right," said Grannie, "now I'll tuck you up and lower the
+blinds, and you'll have a nice little nap till tea-time."
+
+Mollie closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.
+She missed her morning walk and the fresh air of out-of-doors, so
+she gave it up, opened her eyes again, and lay wakefully thinking of
+home and Mother, Dick and Jean, and school. The big clock on the
+mantelpiece seemed to go very, very slowly, its tick loud and
+deliberate, as though it would say: "Don't think you are going to
+get off one single minute--sixty minutes to the hour you have to
+live through, and there are still two hours till tea-time." The rain
+splashed against the window, the wind moaned through the tree-tops,
+and the room got steadily darker.
+
+"Oh dear!" Mollie whispered to herself, "what _can_ I do to make the
+time pass?"
+
+She sat up and looked round, and her eyes fell upon the last of the
+photograph-albums--the one she had yawned over. She picked it up,
+propped it on her knees, and, lying back against the cushions,
+turned the pages over. These were all children, prim children with
+tidy hair and solemn faces. Mollie stopped at the picture of a girl
+dressed in a wide-skirted, sprigged-muslin frock. Her hair fell in
+plump curls from beneath a broad-brimmed hat with long ribbons
+floating over one shoulder. Her legs were very conspicuous in white
+stockings and funny boots with tassels dangling on their fronts.
+
+"I expect this is how Ellen Montgomery looked in _The Wide, Wide
+World_," Mollie said to herself. "She would be rather pretty if she
+were properly dressed; she looks about my age. I wonder what sort of
+time she had--horribly dull, probably. No hockey, no Guiding, no
+fox-trots--I expect she danced the polka, and recited 'Lives of
+great men all remind us', and got pi-jawed ten times a day. I can't
+imagine how children endured life in those days. Thank goodness I
+wasn't born till 1907! She does look rather nice, though--and oh! I
+wish you could talk, my dear! I _am_ dull."
+
+Just then Aunt Mary began to play the piano in the next room. She
+played soft, old-fashioned tunes, so that her niece might be soothed
+to sleep. Mollie did not recognize the tunes but she liked them;
+they seemed to sympathize with her as she continued to look at the
+prim little girl in the photograph.
+
+"Perhaps she played those very tunes; she looks as if she practised
+for one hour a day _regularly_."
+
+As Mollie lay there, the sweet old music sounding in her ears and
+her eyes steadily fixed on the face of that other child of long ago,
+it seemed to her that the child smiled at her.
+
+"I am getting sleepy," she said to herself, and shut her eyes. But
+she did not feel sleepy and soon opened them again. This time there
+was no mistake about it--the child in the photograph _was_ smiling,
+first with her solemn eyes, and then with her prim little mouth.
+Mollie was so startled that she let the album slip from her lap, and
+it fell down between the sofa and the wall. She turned round, and,
+after groping in the narrow space for a minute, she succeeded in
+getting hold of the album again and pulled it up. As she raised her
+head and sat up, she saw, standing beside her sofa, as large as
+life, the prim little girl--wide skirts, white stockings, tasselled
+boots, and all.
+
+As Mollie stared "with all her eyes" as people say, the little girl
+smiled at her again, and she noticed that, although the child's
+dress was so very old-fashioned, her smile was quite a To-day smile,
+so to speak.
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie, "who are you?"
+
+"I am a Time-traveller," the child answered, speaking in a
+peculiarly soft voice. "You called me, so I came."
+
+"What on earth is a Time-traveller?" asked Mollie, rather surprised
+to find that she did not feel in the least alarmed at this sudden
+apparition.
+
+"A person who travels in Time," the child replied. "I am one, and
+you are one, but everybody isn't one. I can't explain, so you'd
+better not waste time asking questions if you want to travel. I
+can't wait here long."
+
+"But--" said Mollie, looking bewildered, as well she might. "Travel
+where? Of course I'd love to come, but how can I with a crocked-up
+ankle; and what would Grannie say?"
+
+"Those things don't matter to Time-travellers," said the other
+child. "We travel about in Time. You haven't got to think about what
+is happening here and now--that will be all right. But you have to
+make a vow before you begin Time-travelling. Do you know what a vow
+is?"
+
+"Of course I do," Mollie replied; "I'm a Girl Guide."
+
+"I don't know what a Girl Guide is," said the other girl, wrinkling
+up her pretty forehead, "but a Time-traveller has to vow on her
+faith and honour never to say one single word about her adventures
+to any grown-up, either here or there. You must not ask them
+questions that will make them wonder things, however much you want
+to, because they don't understand, and would be almost sure to
+interfere. Will you vow?"
+
+"Yes, I will, but you must give me one moment to think. Where shall
+I travel to and how long shall I stay?"
+
+"You come along with me to my Time; I don't know how long you will
+stay. A year of our Time might be a minute of yours, or a minute of
+ours might be a year of yours, but you will be all right. Have you
+ever seen a dissolving view?"
+
+"That's a magic lantern, isn't it? Yes, Dick once had one. I think
+they are rather dull."
+
+"Oh no, not if they are properly done. Hugh--" she stopped and then
+began again. "You will step into a dissolving view of our Time. It
+just begins and ends anyhow, and you go out of it again."
+
+"But it's so _queer_," Mollie said doubtfully. "I never _heard_ of
+such a thing. I must be dreaming."
+
+The other child shook her head. "No, you're not," she said
+patiently. She looked around the room as though in search of
+inspiration, and her eyes fell upon a volume of Shakespeare which
+Aunt Mary had been reading: "Do you learn Shakespeare at your
+school?" she asked.
+
+"Rather," Mollie answered, in a slightly superior voice; "I have
+acted in six plays."
+
+"Ah--then you remember what Hamlet says: 'There are more things in
+Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy'."
+
+"We haven't done _Hamlet_ yet," Mollie answered, in a less superior
+tone, "I don't think I quite understand what that means."
+
+"Neither do I," said the child. "That's it, you see. Papa says--"
+she stopped short again, and then went on. "It's nearly time for me
+to go--and I can never come back if you don't come this time,"
+moving away a few steps as she spoke.
+
+"Oh, don't go--don't go," Mollie cried. "I do want to come; it won't
+do anyone any harm, will it?"
+
+The child smiled very sweetly: "Not the least in the world. But
+remember the vow. On your faith and honour."
+
+"I vow, I vow--on my word of honour as a Guide. I can't say more
+than that."
+
+"Give me your hand, then. Listen to the music, and shut your eyes
+till I tell you to open them."
+
+Mollie closed her eyes. She had a queer swimmy feeling, as if she
+were in a high swing and were just swooping down to the lowest
+point. All the time Aunt Mary's tunes went on, but they seemed to go
+farther and farther away.
+
+"Open," said a soft voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The darkened room had vanished, and the ticking clock; Aunt Mary's
+tunes and the rain splashing on the window-panes; the sofa too, and
+the prim child. And Mollie herself!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was standing in a sunny road, with one foot on a white painted
+wooden gate, upon which she had evidently been swinging. The gate
+opened into a large garden, and before her lay a broad path planted
+on either side with tall, pointed cypress trees, their thin shadows
+lying across the walk like black bars. Between the trees ran narrow
+flower-beds, and beyond these stretched a wide, open space, so
+solidly spread with yellow dandelions that it looked as though the
+golden floor of heaven had come to rest upon earth. The path, with
+its sentinel trees, led straight as a rod to a distant house, long
+and low, surrounded by a vine-covered veranda. There were strange,
+sweet smells in the air, which felt soft and warm. The sky was
+brilliantly blue, and on the fence across the road a gorgeous parrot
+sat preening its feathers in the sunshine.
+
+Mollie looked about her with curious eyes, wondering where she was.
+Not in England, of that she was sure--there was a different feel in
+the air, colours were brighter, scents were stronger, and that
+radiant parrot would never perch itself so tranquilly upon an
+English fence.
+
+Then she saw, coming down the path, a girl of about her own age,
+dressed in a brown-holland overall trimmed with red braid, high to
+the throat, and belted round the waist. She wore no hat, and her
+hair fell over her shoulders in plump brown curls. By her side paced
+a large dog, a rough-haired black-and-white collie with sagacious
+brown eyes. He leapt forward with a short bark, but the girl laid a
+restraining hand on his back:
+
+"Down, Laddie, down," she said, "don't you know a friend when you
+see one? Come in, Mollie."
+
+And suddenly Mollie knew where she was. This was Adelaide, in
+Australia; that was the child in the photograph, whose name, she
+knew, was Prudence Campbell; and they were living in the year 1878.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+The Builders or The Little House
+
+
+Mollie left the white gate, which swung behind her with a sharp
+click, and walked up the path towards Prudence. Laddie circled round
+with a few inquiring sniffs, decided that the newcomer was harmless,
+and stood blinking his eyes in the sunlight, his bushy tail waving
+slowly from side to side. Prudence slid an arm through Mollie's.
+
+"I'm so glad you've come," she said. "Hugh's little house is all but
+finished, and he promised to let us up to-day. Let's go and sit
+beside Grizzel till he calls."
+
+Mollie's eyes followed the turn of Prue's head, and she saw a
+younger child seated upon the golden floor beyond the flower-beds.
+This child wore an overall of bright blue cotton, shaped like
+Prue's, and her head was covered with short red curls, which shone
+in the sun like burnished copper. Prudence frowned a little as she
+looked at her sister:
+
+"How Grizzel can sit in the middle of that yellow, dressed in that
+blue, with that red hair, I can't think," she said. "She calls
+herself an artist, but it simply puts my teeth on edge. Did you ever
+see anything so ugly?"
+
+"Ugly!" Mollie repeated in surprise. "I think it is beautiful, just
+like a picture in _Colour_. What is she doing?"
+
+The child looked up at that moment and smiled at them. "Hullo,
+Mollie," she said in a friendly tone, as if she were quite well
+acquainted with the new arrival, "come and see my dandelion-chain;
+it's nearly done."
+
+Prudence jumped the flower-bed, followed by Mollie and the dog, and
+all three made their way through the thickly growing dandelions, and
+seated themselves beside Grizzel. She had filled her lap with
+dandelions, and was busily occupied in linking them together as
+English children link a daisy-chain.
+
+"What are you doing?" Mollie asked again, as her eyes followed
+Grizzel's chain, and she observed that it stretched far away out of
+sight among the trees and bushes.
+
+"I am laying a chain right round the garden," Grizzel replied. "When
+it is finished it will be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."
+
+"What are you going to do with it?" asked Mollie.
+
+"Nothing," answered Grizzel.
+
+"Then what's the good of making it?" asked Mollie.
+
+"It isn't meant to be any good," answered Grizzel, "it's only meant
+to be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."
+
+"But there's nothing beautiful about longness," persisted Mollie.
+"You wouldn't like to have the longest nose in the world."
+
+"It would be rather nice," said Grizzel, working as steadily as the
+Princess in Hans Andersen's tale of the "White Swans", "then I could
+smell all the delicious smells there are. Mamma says a primrose-
+patch in an English wood is delicious."
+
+"Don't waste your breath trying to make Grizzel change her mind,"
+Prudence interposed. "Papa says you might as well explain to a
+pigling which way you want it to go. Let's help with her chain and
+get it finished. I'm tired of it." She threw a handful of yellow
+bloom into Mollie's lap as she spoke, and began herself to link some
+stalks together in a somewhat dreamy and lazy fashion. Mollie
+followed her example more briskly.
+
+"It's a pity, you know," she said to Grizzel, "to leave the poor
+little flowers withering all round the garden when they might have
+gone on growing for days. They will soon be faded and forgotten."
+
+"I'd rather fade in the longest chain in the world than be one of a
+million dandelions growing on their roots," Grizzel said, pulling a
+fresh handful and shifting her chain to make room for them.
+
+Mollie shook her head but did not argue any more. She dropped her
+chain and looked round the garden. Although the sun was so warm and
+bright the flowers were those which grow in springtime in England.
+Daffodils, narcissus, freesias, and violets grew thickly in the
+borders and under the trees, which seemed to be mostly fruit-trees,
+though Mollie did not recognize them all. Peach and apricot were in
+bloom; fig trees and mulberry trees spread out their broad leaves;
+and an immense vividly scarlet geranium dazzled even Mollie's modern
+eyes. It was a funny mixture of seasons, she thought.
+
+Suddenly Prudence jumped to her feet, letting all her dandelions
+drop unheeded. "There's Hugh!" she exclaimed; "he is calling us. The
+house must be finished. Come on, Grizzel, leave your old chain--come
+on, Mollie."
+
+Grizzel shook her head and set all the red curls bobbing; "I must
+finish my chain first. You go. I won't be long."
+
+Prudence and Mollie jumped the flower-beds again, Laddie, who had
+fallen comfortably asleep among the dandelions, deciding after a few
+lazy blinks to stay where he was. A slender boy in grey was waiting
+for them in the veranda. He was like Prue, but fairer, and his eyes
+were peculiarly clear and thoughtful.
+
+"Come on," he said, "I'm ready for the furnishings now. What I want
+is: first, a carpet; second, curtains; and third--third--a tin-
+opener; but there is no great hurry for that. Where can I get a
+carpet?"
+
+"Schoolroom hearthrug," Prudence suggested promptly. "No one will
+notice, and it's pretty shabby since I dropped the red-hot poker and
+you spilt the treacle-toffee."
+
+"And the curtains?"
+
+"You can have the striped blanket off my bed," said Prue, after a
+moment's consideration, "we can cut it in halves."
+
+"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie. "Cut a blanket in halves! What
+will your mother say to that?"
+
+"Mamma won't know," Prudence replied calmly. "She never looks at my
+bed, and, if she did, she would forget it had ever had a striped
+blanket on it. Come on, Mollie, we'll get the things and smuggle
+them across while no one is looking."
+
+Mollie felt shocked for a minute. Doing things behind backs was all
+against Guide Law, and at home she would almost as soon think of
+chopping up her own feet as of cutting up Mother's blankets to play
+with. But, she reflected, different times have different ways; there
+was no Guide Law in 1878, and perhaps Prue's mother was very extra
+strict, in which case "all's fair in love and war", so she followed
+Prue into the house. It was, to her eyes, an unusual sort of house,
+all built on the ground floor, so that there was no staircase. The
+front door opened into a square hall with doors on all sides. Prue
+pushed one open and they passed through into a bedroom, very plainly
+furnished with two little beds, two chests of drawers, a wash-stand,
+and a chair. They pulled the white cover off one bed and hauled away
+a blanket, cheerfully striped in scarlet, purple, yellow, and green,
+with a few black and white lines thrown in here and there. Mollie
+thought it would be rather a difficult blanket to forget about. Prue
+replaced the white cover, spreading it smoothly and neatly, rolled
+up the blanket, and made for the door again.
+
+Hugh had disappeared. They walked down the veranda, passing several
+open French windows through which Mollie caught a glimpse of
+sitting-rooms, and crossed a paved courtyard, at the farther side of
+which was a red brick house with a wooden porch in front of it.
+
+"The schoolroom is here," Prudence explained, "because Mamma doesn't
+like noise. It's a very good plan for us; we can do lots of things
+we couldn't do if we were in the house. Miss Wilton is our
+governess; she has gone home to-day to nurse a sister with
+bronchitis. I'm sorry for the sister, but it's a treat for us,
+especially as Hugh has got a half-holiday. Mamma is out, Bridget has
+taken Baby for a walk, and Mary is talking to her sweetheart across
+the fence, so we'll get the hearthrug without any questions."
+
+As she talked, Prudence led the way into the schoolroom. It was
+plainly furnished and not very tidy, but it had a homely look--in
+fact it reminded Mollie of the nursery in North Kensington, so that,
+for one very brief moment, she almost felt homesick. But Prudence
+gave her little time to indulge in this luxurious sensation (because
+having a home nice enough to be sick for is a luxury in its way),
+and Mollie had merely taken in a general impression of books, toys,
+and shabbiness, when Prudence called her to help with the hearthrug.
+It certainly was shabby and by no means added to the beauty of the
+room. They rolled it up with the blanket inside, and, carrying it
+between them, they left the schoolroom, crossed the courtyard again,
+scrambled over a low stone wall, and arrived at the foot of a tall
+tree.
+
+It was a very large tree. Its trunk, grey, smooth, and absolutely
+straight, rose from the ground for fourteen feet without a branch or
+foothold of any description. At that height its thick boughs spread
+out in a broad and even circumference, and across two of these
+boughs was built a hut, perhaps five by seven feet in area, and high
+enough for a child of ten to stand upright in. It had a floor, four
+walls, and a roof, an opening for a door, and three smaller openings
+for windows. At the door sat Hugh, waiting for the girls and their
+bundle. When they came to a standstill below him he let down a rope.
+
+"Tie the things on and I'll haul them up," he ordered; "and then you
+two climb up and give me a hand. Better send Mollie up first, as the
+ladder is a bit shaky till you know it, and Prue can hang on to it
+below."
+
+Mollie noticed then that a narrow green ladder leant up against the
+smooth trunk; it looked as if an unwary step would send it flying,
+and she put a reluctant foot on the lowest rung. The ground below
+was hard and stony, most uninviting for a fall.
+
+"You are quite safe so long as you push and don't pull," Prudence
+assured her. "I am holding on here, and the ladder is firmer than it
+looks."
+
+Mollie mounted with gingerly tread, but reached the top safely and
+crawled into the hut through the little door. She was quickly
+followed by Prudence, and the two girls examined the interior with
+interest. There was not very much room; two could sit down with
+comfort, three would be slightly crowded, and four would be a tight
+fit but not impossible.
+
+"You won't be able to lay the carpet with all of us inside," said
+Mollie, as she felt the big roll at her back.
+
+"One of you had better stay out," said Hugh. "There are seats all
+over the tree."
+
+Mollie put her head out at the door and looked up into the branches.
+They were very much forked, and upon every difficult branch Hugh had
+nailed steps and made a railing. In some of the forks he had
+inserted wooden seats, others he had left to nature. The topmost
+seat was almost at the summit of the tree, and behind it was firmly
+lashed a flagpole, with a Union Jack hanging limply in the still
+air, and a lantern with green and red glass on two of its sides.
+Near the door of the little house there hung from a stout branch a
+curious-looking canvas bag, broadly tubular in shape, and with a
+small brass tap at the lower end. The tree was thickly foliaged, but
+the leaves were delicate and lacy, and, though they formed an
+admirable screen for the climbers, a good view of the surrounding
+country was to be obtained between them, and even through them in
+some places. Mollie decided to climb to the top and look about.
+
+"That's our look-out," Hugh explained. "We can see the enemy from
+there a long time before the enemy can see us."
+
+"'O Pip', is what _we_ call it," said Mollie. "Who is the enemy?"
+
+"It all depends," Hugh replied evasively. "Now, Prue, look alive."
+
+Mollie was a level-headed climber when she had something reasonably
+solid beneath her feet; no one unfamiliar with the vagaries of the
+green ladder could be expected to climb it with enthusiasm. She
+crawled out of the house by the little door again, found her road to
+the nearest staircase, and climbed this way and that among the leafy
+branches till she reached the Look-out. There she settled herself
+comfortably and examined her surroundings near and far, whilst the
+other two laid the carpet and tacked up the blanket, now cut into
+three strips by Prudence.
+
+"She looks as if she were hemming sheets for missionaries," Mollie
+said to herself, as she watched Prudence doing execution on the
+blanket with a large pair of scissors. "It would be almost
+impossible for any girl to be as good as Prue looks; it's her
+eyelashes, and the way she does her hair."
+
+After admiring the well-planned architecture of the tree Mollie
+turned her attention to the scenery. At her feet lay the garden with
+the long, vine-wreathed house and the red schoolroom at one side. It
+was a large garden, stretching far behind the house, and, as Mollie
+surveyed the rows of almond trees which outlined its boundaries, she
+felt some respect for Grizzel's perseverance. "If she has laid a
+chain right round that she knows how to stick to a thing," she
+thought, as she caught sight of the little blue figure still sitting
+amongst the golden dandelions. "It's a pity she doesn't do something
+more worth while. She would make a good Guide." Looking beyond the
+garden, Mollie could see the town of Adelaide. It was a white town
+among green trees, with many slender spires and pointed steeples
+piercing the blue sky, many gardens and meadows, and a silvery
+streak of river winding across it like a twisted thread. A
+semicircle of softly swelling hills enclosed the town upon two
+sides, some of them striped with vineyards, some wooded, and some
+brilliantly yellow, for the dandelions seemed to be spread over the
+country like a carpet. Mollie shook a wise head at such waste of
+good land, for of what use are dandelions! In the far distance she
+could see a straight white road leading from the town into the
+hills. She thought she would like to follow that road and see what
+happened to it in the end. "I had not the least idea," she murmured
+to herself, "that Adelaide and Australia were like this; not the
+very least. There must be a great deal of world outside England,
+when you come to think of it. When I am grown-up--"
+
+"Come down, Mollie," called Prue. "The house is beautiful now; come
+and see it."
+
+It certainly looked very snug, with the carpet, whose shabbiness was
+not noticeable in the dim light, and the gaily striped curtains,
+which had been tacked up and fastened back from the windows. They
+had added a set of shelves made out of a box covered with American
+leather and brass-headed nails. A few books lay upon one shelf, and
+on another stood a collection of cups, saucers, and plates, cracked,
+perhaps, and not all matching, but suggestive of convivial parties
+and good cheer. In one corner lay a cushion embroidered in woolwork
+with magenta roses, pea-green leaves, and orange-coloured daisies,
+all upon a background of ultramarine blue. Mollie thought it gave an
+effective touch to the somewhat scanty furnishing--in fact, it was
+the only furniture there was, except the shelves.
+
+"How perfectly _ripping_!" Mollie exclaimed enthusiastically. "If I
+had this house I would live in it all the time. It is _much_ nicer
+than a common house in a road. I do think Hugh is the cleverest boy
+I ever met."
+
+"This is nothing much," Hugh said modestly, "you should see my
+raft--that _is_ worth seeing. I have invented a way of arranging
+corks so that it will float in the severest storm. It could not sink
+if it tried, unless, of course, it became waterlogged. But I can
+only work at that when we are down at Brighton."
+
+"I wish my brother Dick could be a Time-traveller and come here,"
+sighed Mollie. "He would adore this tree, and the raft too."
+
+"How old is Dick?" Hugh asked with interest.
+
+"He is my twin; we are thirteen and a half," answered Mollie, quite
+forgetting that in the year 1878 Dick was still minus twenty-nine.
+"We do everything together in the holidays except football, and just
+now there isn't any football, so Dick is rather bored at school. In
+term-time we hardly see each other at all, we are both so horribly
+busy. How do you find time to do all these things?"
+
+"I don't find it, I steal it," Hugh answered. "If I waited to _find_
+time I should never have enough to be useful. To-day is a half-
+holiday, and I am supposed to be learning Roman history and writing
+out five hundred lines. But I'm not," he added unnecessarily.
+
+"Building is much more important than Roman history," said Mollie
+decidedly, "and lines are absolutely rotten. I wonder why--"
+
+"Hullo!" came a voice from below. "It's me. I have finished my chain
+at last, and now I want to come up. Please come and hold the ladder,
+Prue."
+
+Prudence crept out, tripped lightly down the ladder, and stood
+beside her sister.
+
+"Hold tight, Grizzel, and do remember to push and not pull; if you
+pull I can't hold the ladder up."
+
+"I wish Hugh would cut steps in the tree-trunk like the blacks,"
+Grizzel complained, as she proceeded rather nervously to climb the
+ladder. "I do hate this old tobbely old green old thing."
+
+"I am going to make a rope-ladder and pull it up after me," Hugh
+said, watching her from the door of his castle in the air. "I don't
+want steps that everybody could climb. Look out, Griz, you are
+pulling--" he stretched out a hand as he spoke, and held the top of
+the ladder, while Prudence steadied it at the bottom, until Grizzel
+had safely negotiated "the green passage", as Hugh called it, and
+crawled in at his little front door.
+
+"It is very, very, very, very nice," she said approvingly, "and it
+will make a lovely place to come and hate in when everybody is
+horrid. You can draw the curtains and shut the door, and light your
+lantern and sit here hating as long as you like, for no one can get
+up when you have your rope-ladder."
+
+"It would be rather stuffy," Mollie said, looking at the thick
+blanket curtains. "If he went on hating very long he would be
+suffocated. I'd sooner have a tea-party myself, and pull all the tea
+up in baskets. The water would be the hard part."
+
+"The water is in that canvas bag," Hugh pointed out; "Papa gave it
+to me; it's the boiling that bothers me, because I don't much like
+using a spirit-lamp in here."
+
+"Get an old biscuit-tin and fasten it up in the tree and put your
+spirit-lamp in that," suggested Mollie the Guide. "Cut out the
+front; then you will have a nice little cave all safe and
+sheltered."
+
+"That's a jolly good idea," said Hugh; "I'll do it to-morrow and
+we'll have a party."
+
+A bell in the distance warned the children that it was time to go in
+and tidy up for tea. Grizzel, however, was far too much enthralled
+by the little house to want to come down so soon. "I don't want any
+bread-and-butter tea," she announced; "bring me three oranges and
+eleven biscuits, and the _Swiss Family Robinson_, and let me stay up
+here."
+
+Tea was laid in the dining-room, where they found Baby already
+seated in her high chair. She was a very pretty baby, with large
+dark eyes, silky golden hair, and a dear little mouth parting over
+two rows of tiny pearly teeth. She gurgled melodiously to her family
+in the intervals of dropping bits of jammy bread into her mug of
+milk, and watching them bob about with absorbed interest.
+
+"Good old Mary! She's made potato scones _and_ almond gingerbread."
+Hugh remarked approvingly. "If you've never tasted real Irish potato
+scones baked on a girdle, Mollie, you'd better chalk it up, as
+Bridget says. You split them in two, pop in a lump of butter, shut
+them up, and eat them. Too soon they are but a sweet dream of the
+past."
+
+"They'll soon be a horrid dream of the future if you gobble them
+like that," Prudence said warningly, "and you've forgotten Grizzel's
+oranges; go and pull three fresh ones, and we'd better send her
+ginger cake."
+
+The gingerbread was baked in thin oblong squares frosted with white
+sugar, each child's name being written on its own cake in pink
+letters. They were most fascinating, and Mollie was charmed to see
+one with her own name on it. The delightful part about this most
+unexpected visit, she thought, was the way everyone had apparently
+expected her. She could not help wondering how the invitation had
+been sent, but decided that it was better not to ask too many
+questions.
+
+Hugh departed with Grizzel's oranges, biscuits, and gingerbread,
+elegantly arranged in a green-rush basket, the _Swiss Family
+Robinson_ forming the basis of the repast. He returned with a smile
+upon his face which disclosed two most engaging dimples.
+
+"I've sneaked the ladder," he said. "Won't Frizzy Grizzy be pleased
+when she finds out! Ha ha! More scones, please."
+
+"She won't mind," Prudence answered placidly, "she knows someone
+will have to let her down before Mamma comes in. You've had enough
+jam, Baby darling; let Prudence take off your bib now and wash your
+handy-pandys. You can have half my gingerbread if you like, Hugh--
+hullo, there's Papa!"
+
+There was a sharp double knock at the front door, followed by the
+sound of someone entering. Prudence set Baby on her feet and bolted
+helter-skelter across the square hall, flinging herself into the
+arms of a stout man with a brown beard, who returned her embrace so
+warmly that Mollie wondered if he had been away from home for some
+time. He removed his tall silk hat, showing a head as thickly
+covered with curls as Grizzel's, but the hair was dark and slightly
+touched with grey.
+
+"Well, my chick-a-biddies," he said, in a delightfully genial voice,
+beaming upon them all with the kindest blue eyes Mollie had ever
+seen, "and what has everybody been doing? And where is Grizzel?"
+
+As he spoke he lifted Baby into his arms, ignoring the jammy little
+fingers, laid a hand on Mollie's head, and looked round inquiringly
+for his missing daughter.
+
+"She's in my Nest," Hugh replied, "it's finished. Come and see it.
+You can't climb into it yet, but it looks very nice from the
+outside. I think I'll arrange a box to pull you and Mamma up in. The
+zinc-lined box the piano came in would do."
+
+"Thank you, my son," said Papa kindly, "thank you, thank you. At the
+moment I am rather pressed for time. I have to meet Mamma at Mrs.
+Taylor's at half-past five, and we are going to the town-hall to
+hear this wonderful new telephone, as they call it. They say that
+someone speaking from the post office at Glenelg will be perfectly
+audible in the town-hall here, a distance of six and a half miles.
+It sounds almost incredible. What will they discover next! Truly
+this is an amazing age, and you children may live to see men flying
+yet."
+
+Hugh had left his gingerbread, which lay forgotten on his plate, and
+stood before his father flushed with excitement:
+
+"Take me with you, _do_, Papa," he cried. "I'll learn reams of Latin
+and get up at four o'clock and--"
+
+"Well, get your hat and be quick then," Papa interrupted
+indulgently. "Prue, my pet, look in my bag and you will find five
+parcels, one for each young robber. Be fair and amiable, my
+children. Come, Hugh. Good night, Papa's little angel." He kissed
+Baby, handed her over to Prudence, put on his hat again, and was off
+down the wide path between the cypress trees with Hugh hanging on
+his arm, in less than no time.
+
+"Let's watch from the gate," said Prudence. "Bridget will take Baby.
+Hurry up, Mollie."
+
+They reached the foot of the garden just in time to see Papa's tall
+hat disappear round the corner of the road. It was a lovely evening,
+and the girls lingered by the gate; the scent of violets and
+freesias rose from the flowerbed at their feet, and every now and
+again came a whiff of something else--something exquisitely fragrant
+and delicate.
+
+"What's that?" asked Mollie, with an unladylike sniff; "that lovely
+smell?"
+
+"It's wattle," Prudence answered. "It's in the fields over there.
+You can smell it for miles sometimes, in the country; it's a nice
+smell. Let's go and look at Papa's parcels. He went to see Mrs.
+Macfarline at her toyshop to-day, and when he goes there he always
+brings something home. It's a beautiful shop. Once I stayed with
+Lucy Macfarline from Saturday till Monday, and her mamma allowed us
+to play in the shop on Sunday; it was so funny, all dark and dim,
+and the dolls looking like little ghosts. We played with the toys on
+the shelves and had a lovely time. I love shops--oh, Mollie, we have
+forgotten Grizzel! She is up in the tree all this time! We must run
+and get her down. I hope Hugh hasn't hidden the ladder--I wish he
+wouldn't tease so."
+
+"All brothers do," Mollie said philosophically. "Dick is simply the
+limit sometimes, but I do wish we could get him over here, Prudence.
+Do you think we could?"
+
+"I'll think. But first we must find that ladder."
+
+As they neared the tree Prudence called to her sister that they were
+coming, but got no answer. They jumped the low wall and stood
+underneath the tree, nearly dislocating their necks in their efforts
+to see some sign of life in the little house. But Grizzel neither
+answered nor showed herself, in spite of Prue's eloquent description
+of Papa's parcels and denunciations of their brother.
+
+"Perhaps she is having her evening hate," suggested Mollie.
+
+"She does take awful fits of the sulks sometimes," Prudence allowed,
+"but I don't think she would be sulky with _me_ just now; it wasn't
+me that stole the ladder--oh _bother_ that Hugh! We had better go
+and look for it as fast as we can. I wonder where he has hidden it?"
+
+"It can't be far away, because he was only gone for a few minutes at
+tea-time," Mollie remarked sensibly. "Very likely it is simply lying
+on the ground behind the wall."
+
+That was precisely where it was, and without much trouble the girls
+got it into place again, and Prudence mounted quickly. She
+disappeared through the little door, but in one moment appeared
+again with a frightened face.
+
+"She's not here, Mollie. She's gone."
+
+"Gone!" Mollie exclaimed incredulously. "She can't be gone! How
+could she get down without the ladder? She must be up in the tree."
+
+"No, she isn't. I can see every branch from here; there is not a
+single place where she could hide."
+
+"But she _must_ be up there somewhere," Mollie persisted. "If she
+had fallen out she would be lying round somewhere. There is no way
+she _could_ get down without the ladder. She is so nervous. I'll
+come up too and look."
+
+"You may come, but you won't see anything," Prudence said, steadying
+her end of the ladder while Mollie climbed.
+
+The Nest was certainly empty. The little blue bird must have found
+wings and flown, Mollie thought. She looked up and down and round
+about, but not a vestige of Grizzel was there to be seen. Then she
+called her Scouting lore to her aid, and set her wits to work.
+
+"The basket has gone too, and there is no orange peel anywhere, but
+the _Swiss Family Robinson_ is there on the book-shelf. So she did
+not go in a great hurry, because she tidied up first. Let us go to
+the Look-out and see if we can catch sight of her blue frock. She
+may be hiding quite near and laughing at us all the time."
+
+They climbed to the Look-out and anxiously scanned all the visible
+parts of the garden, but nowhere was there a morsel of blue pinafore
+or red curls to be seen.
+
+"We had better get down," Prudence said, "and search the garden
+properly; I'll ask Bridget to come and help us. What I can't
+understand is how she got down at all, and, if she _was_ down, why
+she didn't come to meet Papa. She always meets him; always, always.
+Whoever doesn't meet him Grizzel always does."
+
+Bridget laughed at their fears, but under her laugh Mollie could
+detect a tone of anxiety, and when house and garden had been
+searched in vain, Bridget and Prudence faced each other in silence.
+Then Prue spoke out the fear which Mollie had not understood:
+
+"The blacks have come to town; I saw their wurlies yesterday when we
+left the Gardens."
+
+"Away wid ye, Miss Prudence," Bridget scoffed. "An' what for wud the
+blacks be touchin' Grizzel? Isn't yur Pa the kindest gintleman in
+the whole wurrld to thim, dirrty things they be!"
+
+"Old Sammy was angry because Mamma would not give him a new blanket
+last time he came," Prudence answered, her face pale with anxiety
+and tears not far away. "He just goes and sells them, that's what he
+does, and buys whisky. He followed me all down the road one day when
+I was alone, and jabbered away till his wife came and hauled him
+off."
+
+There was a troubled silence while Bridget and Prue considered the
+next step to take. Mollie felt that this problem was beyond her
+powers of solving. Then a sudden thought struck her:
+
+"Where's Laddie? We haven't seen him either."
+
+"Praise be!" exclaimed Bridget. "The dog'll be wid Grizzel, an'
+that's sure. Blessin's on ye for the thought, Miss Mollie, for it's
+scared I was an' there's no use denyin'."
+
+"Thank goodness! If the blacks had come Laddie would have barked,"
+Prudence said, taking a long breath of relief. "How on earth did I
+not miss him myself!"
+
+"Your mind was so full of Grizzel you had no room for another
+thought, but now--where is she, and how did she get down?"
+
+"We _must_ find her before Mamma comes home. Mollie, you are clever;
+think some more."
+
+Mollie thought her hardest, but, as she explained, it was difficult
+to make suggestions when she knew neither Grizzel nor the
+surroundings very well. "She had no hat on; let us go and see if she
+has taken a hat. Would she be likely to go out without one?"
+
+No, they said, going out without a hat was unheard of. So a search
+was instituted in the girl's room, and to their relief Grizzel's
+garden hat was missing--somehow, even to Mollie, it seemed less
+alarming to be missing with a hat than without one. In fact, if it
+had not been for the mystery of the tree--which certainly _was_ very
+inexplicable--Mollie would not have disturbed herself. Grizzel had
+gone out, wearing her hat, carrying her basket, and accompanied by
+the large and capable Laddie. Most likely she would come back
+presently with some simple explanation to account for everything.
+
+"I think she has gone for a walk. She got down somehow and ran off
+to give Hugh a fright. Let's go and look for her along the road,"
+was Mollie's next proposal.
+
+"If she has gone for a walk she will most likely come home by the
+lane, unless she went over to the parklands--oh, I wish she would
+come back! She never goes out alone in town, because she is
+frightened of meeting Things. She says there are all sorts of Things
+in town. Once she got lost in a big crowd, and I think it made her
+rather nervous. Besides, Mamma will be angry if she is not home when
+they come in, and we'll get such scoldings." Prudence sighed and
+looked longingly towards the white gate, but there was no sign of
+the wanderer's return.
+
+"Suppose we go to the Look-out and reconnoitre, and if we see her we
+can go and meet her," said Mollie.
+
+This seemed a good idea, so they climbed the ladder once more, and,
+one behind the other, scrambled to the top of the tree. But twilight
+was already creeping over the land--the brief Australian twilight
+which turns to darkness so quickly. It was impossible to see any
+distance, and the girls were turning their backs on the flagpole
+when Prudence stopped with an exclamation:
+
+"I think I will light the lantern. Grizzel will see it from a long
+way off. Look in the house for matches, Mollie, while I turn the red
+glasses both ways."
+
+"But red means danger," Mollie objected, "and we aren't dangerous."
+
+"Mamma is when we break rules," Prudence replied, "and it will
+remind Grizzel to hurry up."
+
+"Good gracious!" Mollie ejaculated, as she climbed down on her
+errand, "I am glad we don't hang a red lantern out of the nursery
+window when we see Mother coming along. How she would laugh if we
+did!"
+
+"It won't burn long," Prue said, as she shut the lantern door, "but
+it will do. Now we'll go down the lane; I am almost sure Grizzel
+will come that way."
+
+They crossed the garden and slipped into the lane through a narrow
+back gate. It seemed to Mollie that the darkness fell like a
+curtain, so quickly did it come dropping down. High up above the
+trees they could see the red lantern shining in the dusk like a
+glowing ruby; the air was growing chilly, and all the warm bright
+colours were fading into a dull uniform grey, when suddenly out of
+the shadowy dimness there leapt a dark form--a form with a bushy
+tail and a friendly bark.
+
+"Laddie!" exclaimed Prudence, and a moment after Grizzel appeared,
+running along and swinging her basket.
+
+"Am I late?" she asked breathlessly. "I didn't mean to be so long; I
+stopped to look at the shop windows."
+
+"Oh, Grizzel, where _have_ you been?" Prue said, catching her sister
+by the arm. "I have been so frightened. Come on quickly now, or we
+won't be ready, and _then_ there will be a hullabuloo and goodness
+knows what tomorrow."
+
+They hurried back to the house, and were met by an anxious Bridget
+with Baby in her arms. Bridget scolded, and Baby laughed, and they
+were all so busy "getting ready" that it was not till three white
+muslin frocks were spread primly over three green damask Victorian
+chairs that Prudence found time to ask:
+
+"How on earth did you get down from the tree?"
+
+"I just got down," Grizzel answered, looking mysterious, "I invented
+a secret way of getting down."
+
+"Nonsense," Prudence said rather crossly; "there can't be a secret
+way down."
+
+"Well, find out for yourself," Grizzel retorted, her face taking on
+an obstinate expression.
+
+"But how _did_ you?" Mollie asked, with an ingratiating smile.
+
+Grizzel shook her rebellious little red curls. "It's my secret," she
+repeated; "I won't tell."
+
+"When did you find out that the ladder was gone?" Prue asked, in a
+more amiable voice.
+
+"I just knew. It's part of the secret."
+
+"You'll have to tell Hugh," Prudence said firmly; "you can't have
+secret ways into other people's houses."
+
+"I won't tell anyone. It's my mysterious secret and I shall keep
+it."
+
+Prudence frowned and opened her mouth to speak again, but Mollie
+signed to her to be silent. Mollie was not a Patrol Leader for
+nothing; she had learned to be diplomatic, and now she turned the
+conversation:
+
+"Where are those parcels?" she asked.
+
+"The parcels! Goodness me, I forgot them! How _could_ I do such a
+thing!" Prudence exclaimed, jumping up from the green chair and
+rushing into the hall, followed by Mollie; Grizzel sat on in sulky
+dignity, trying to look uninterested.
+
+"Suppose Papa had come home and found we had not opened them, his
+feelings would have been dreadfully hurt," Prudence said with
+compunction. "It would have been murder outing. He always says
+murder will out." Grizzel's dignity could not survive the sight of
+the brown-paper packages, and the parcels were quickly undone and
+the wrappings and string tidied away--"the evidences of our folly",
+Prue said, as she bundled them out of sight. The contents were so
+charming that everybody forgot their little difference of opinion.
+There was a fine large kaleidoscope, the first she had ever seen,
+for Mollie; a charming musical box, with a long list of tunes
+printed inside the lid and a little gilt key to wind it up with, for
+Prudence; a Winsor and Newton paint-box for Grizzel; _Five Weeks in
+a Balloon_, by Jules Verne, for Hugh; and a Punchinello doll on a
+stick for Baby.
+
+"I must say," Mollie remarked appreciatively, "your father _is_ a
+peach. I have often wanted to see a proper kaleidoscope, but they
+seem to have gone out of fashion."
+
+The others were too busy admiring their own things to observe
+Mollie's remarks. Grizzel was speechless with joy as she found all
+the paints she had been longing for--the crimson lake, Prussian
+blue, Vandyke brown, and the rest; Prue had wound up her box, and as
+Mollie turned her kaleidoscope towards the light, and delighted
+herself with the wonderful colours and designs it produced, she
+heard the delicate, sweet tinkle of a faintly familiar tune--an old-
+fashioned sort of tune....
+
+While they were thus pleasantly occupied Professor and Mrs. Campbell
+and Hugh returned, and Mollie was introduced to "Mamma" who after
+all did not look in the least alarming. She was a fair, pretty
+woman, with large clear eyes like Hugh's and a beautifully modulated
+voice. She kissed Mollie and looked at her with rather a sad
+expression in her eyes:
+
+"You must tell me all about home this evening," she said in her
+musical voice. "How nicely your hair is cut; I wonder if Prue's
+would look nice like that."
+
+"No, no," said Papa, laying his hand on Prue's curls, "I can't spare
+one hair off my Prue's head. I must have my brown ringlets to play
+with sometimes."
+
+Hugh could talk of nothing but the wonderful telephone. "I believe I
+could make one," he said later on. "I understood a good deal of what
+the man said. I shall require a new magnet and some other things.
+I'll begin tomorrow." He had forgotten all about such trifles as
+hidden ladders and treed sisters, and the girls did not remind him.
+
+But when Mollie found herself alone with Grizzel she began to talk
+about the little house and described a beautiful plan she had
+concocted for a house-warming, finishing up with the remark that it
+was a pity that Grizzel could not come.
+
+"Why can't I come?" demanded Grizzel. "Of course I'll come. I adore
+the little house."
+
+"It's Hugh's house, and I don't think he will let you come if you
+have a mysterious secret way of getting up and down. He won't like
+it."
+
+Grizzel was silent. "It's nothing very wonderful," she said at last.
+"I was only paying Prudence out for forgetting me. She might have
+remembered to let me down when Papa came home--" and Grizzel's eyes
+filled with tears. Mollie's heart softened:
+
+"He was in such a hurry that there was no time to get you, and it
+was my fault afterwards just as much as Prue's."
+
+"I'll tell you now if you like," Grizzel went on; "only you must
+promise not to tell Prudence and Hugh."
+
+"No," said Mollie, "I can't do that. Prudence was awfully
+frightened; she got quite pale. We were frightened together and
+looked for you together; it wouldn't be fair for you to tell me and
+not to tell her. I hate things that are not fair."
+
+Grizzel was silent again and then sighed. "Oh well, I suppose I'd
+better tell. I'd have liked to keep one secret, but I can't bear not
+to go to Hugh's party. It was very easy--I only--"
+
+"Wait," said Mollie, "I'll call Prue."
+
+[Illustration: I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM
+HERE TO MY BROTHER]
+
+"I saw Hugh take the ladder," Grizzel went on, after Prue joined
+them; "of course I heard it scraping along; Hugh is a silly. So I
+watched him hide it, and when the milkman came I called him, and he
+put it up and helped me down and we hid it back again. That's all."
+
+The others looked at each other, and then Mollie began to laugh, and
+went on laughing till Prue and Grizzel laughed at her laughing.
+"Well, I must say!" she exclaimed at last, "I _am_ a Sherlock Holmes
+and no mistake! I was so busy being clever that I never even thought
+of a milkman, which would have been Baden-Powell's first idea. Of
+all the silly things! Why on earth didn't we think of it, Prue?"
+
+Hugh, most reluctantly, went to school next morning, and Mamma kept
+the girls busy with Italian, music, and needlework till lunch-time.
+After that Grizzel departed with her paint-box, Bridget took Baby
+for a walk, and Mollie and Prue settled themselves in the little
+house, with a cushion apiece at their backs, a basket of freshly
+pulled oranges between them, and a couple of books in case
+conversation should flag.
+
+"Now, Prudence, tell me more about Time-travellers," Mollie said;
+"somehow I can't seem to remember that I am one; in fact--" she
+paused.
+
+"You can't believe it," Prudence finished for her. "I know. But it's
+meant to be like that. If you didn't forget you would remember too
+much, and then you would stop being a Time-traveller, because your
+mind can't be in two places at once. So it is better _not_ to talk;
+or you may have to go."
+
+"I won't again, but just tell me two things. Can we travel forwards
+as well as backwards?"
+
+"A few people can, not everyone; but it is better not, Mollie. It is
+far better not."
+
+"But you came into my Time to fetch me."
+
+"I didn't exactly come, you brought me; and I can only stay a
+moment."
+
+"Well," Mollie said, after a short silence, "the other thing is: Can
+I bring Dick? He would love this place and this Time--somehow you
+seem to have more room than we have, and you are not so frightfully
+busy. We never have _enough_ time; I think your hours must be longer
+than ours," she went on, with a sigh. "I simply cannot get all the
+things squeezed in that I want to do. I often wish the days were
+thirty hours long."
+
+"You weren't wishing that when I came," Prudence said, with a little
+laugh. "I don't know about Dick; you can't bring him unless he wants
+to come--of his own accord, I mean."
+
+Mollie pondered a little, and then sighed again: "It will be rather
+hard. He doesn't want anything frightfully except football, and
+there isn't any just now. Perhaps we could make him want to come;
+couldn't Hugh invent some way? It was only one chance in a hundred--
+in a thousand, perhaps, that made me talk to your photograph. Let us
+ask Hugh."
+
+"We can ask," Prudence agreed, "but his head is going to be packed
+full of telephone now, and he won't think or speak of anything else
+for days. That's the way he is; we get rather tired of it sometimes,
+especially when we have to help. Grizzel collected four hundred
+corks for his raft. She grubbed in the ashpit, and among the empty
+beer-bottles--" Prudence sighed in her turn.
+
+The two girls met Hugh at the white gate on his return from school,
+and Mollie seized the first opportunity to make her request.
+
+"I don't know," Hugh answered thoughtfully; "there ought to be a
+way. I believe there is a way _somewhere_ to do everything, if you
+can only find it. It's mostly a question of looking long enough. And
+a thing is always in the last place you look for it--naturally. I am
+going to make a telephone; if I could make one long enough--" he
+paused.
+
+They were strolling up the wide, cypress-bordered path as they
+talked, and Mollie's wandering gaze fell upon a low mound at the
+foot of one of the cypress trees.
+
+"What's that?" she asked, coming to a standstill. "It looks like a
+cat's grave."
+
+It was a grave sure enough, and crowned with a bunch of pansies. A
+small headstone had been made from the lid of an old soapbox, on
+which was printed the following inscription:
+
+          HERE LITH
+             THE
+           LONGEST
+      DANDY LION CHANE
+             IN
+          THE WURLD
+
+"It's Grizzel," said Prudence; "why on earth has she gone and buried
+her beautiful chain?"
+
+Grizzel joined the group and answered for herself:
+
+"Mollie said the poor flowers would be forgotten. I should hate to
+be forgotten, so I lifted them all up and buried them. I bought a
+yard of lovely yellow muslin when I was out yesterday and made a
+beautiful shroud. That cypress tree is rather big for such a little
+grave, but it's the littlest in the garden."
+
+No one smiled. "It was a wonderful chain," Mollie said, remembering
+her view from the Look-out, "I wish I could make something that
+would reach from here to my brother Dick. I wish we had wireless. I
+wonder if 'willing' would be any good. Have you ever played willing?
+We join hands and will with all our might that Dick would come
+here."
+
+"It sounds easy," said Hugh, always ready for a new experiment,
+"much easier than making a telephone; we might as well try."
+
+So they joined hands and wished. As they loosened hands again a
+shrill cry above their heads made them all look up--it was a parrot
+flying low across the garden, its brilliant plumage shining in the
+evening sunlight like jewels. "It's my parrot!" Mollie exclaimed,
+"it met me by the gate yesterday."
+
+Mollie sat up. The rain was still splashing on the window-panes, but
+Aunt Mary was drawing the curtains, and a cheerful little fire had
+been lighted. There was a pleasant tinkle of china as tea-cups were
+settled on the tray.
+
+"Have I been asleep?" she asked incredulously. (It surely was not
+all a _dream_!)
+
+"A beautiful sleep," Aunt Mary answered; "and now tea, and after
+tea--you shall see what you shall see."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+The Fortune-makers or The Cherry-garden
+
+
+Mollie was rather silent at tea-time. She could not help thinking of
+those other children in that long-ago far-away garden. Were they
+real? Or had it all been a dream? It _must_ have been a dream, she
+thought--such things do not happen in real life--it was impossible
+that it should have been true. And yet, never before had she dreamt
+anything so clearly, so "going-on" as she expressed it to herself.
+She longed to tell Aunt Mary all about it, but the memory of her vow
+restrained her. If nothing further happened, in course of time she
+would feel free to tell of her wonderful experience, but in the
+meantime she must have patience. She racked her brains to think of
+some roundabout way of introducing the subject of Australia and the
+year 1878, but could not get past her vow--it seemed to block the
+way in every direction.
+
+So she ate her little triangles of toast--made in a particularly
+fascinating way peculiar to Grannie's housekeeping--without enjoying
+the scrunch, scrunch between her teeth so much as usual. Even the
+early strawberries and cream found her somewhat absent-minded.
+
+But after tea was cleared away and the room tidied up, Aunt Mary
+disappeared for a short time and returned with her hands behind her
+back. She stood before Mollie, and in a solemn voice chanted the
+following words:
+
+  "Neevie neevie nick nack,
+  Which hand will ye tak?
+  Tak the right or tak the wrong,
+  I'll beguile ye if I can."
+
+This was too interesting to be ignored. Mollie sat up and became her
+ordinary self again. She looked critically at Aunt Mary's arms,
+shoulders, and eyes, but got no information from any of these. Then
+she laughed:
+
+"I _won't_ have the wrong, please, I'll have the right."
+
+Aunt Mary laughed too. "You are too clever, Miss Mollie. That is not
+the way _I_ did neevie-neevie when I was young." She brought her
+right hand round as she spoke, and in it was a charming box, large,
+varnished, and clamped at the corners with brass. She laid it on
+Mollie's lap, and watched the sliding lid being pulled out by a pair
+of impatient hands. It was a beautiful jig-saw puzzle.
+
+"Oh, where _did_ you get it?" Mollie cried joyfully. "I _adore_ jig-
+saw puzzles. You are a lovely, lovely aunt!" and she held out her
+arms for a hug and a kiss.
+
+"Well," said Aunt Mary, smiling with pleasure at the success of her
+surprise, "I remembered how fond you are of jig-saws, so yesterday,
+as soon as you had fallen asleep, I wired to Hamley's. I was not
+sure if it would arrive to-day, so I did not tell you. Now, let us
+see what it is--a map! Oh, dear me, I hope you won't find a map
+dull!"
+
+Grannie, who loved jig-saws almost as much as Mollie did, had drawn
+up a substantial table to the sofa and seated herself beside it.
+"Dull!" she said reprovingly, "I hope not indeed. Maps are the most
+interesting puzzles one can have. What is it a map of?"
+
+"We'll soon find that out," said Mollie, laying a very jagged
+section upon the table and studying it with interest. "What funny
+names--Weeah! Where's that? It sounds like China."
+
+Grannie had also possessed herself of a section, and was
+scrutinizing it through her spectacles. "I'll need my reading-glass,
+Mary, my dear," she said; "my old eyes cannot see this tiny print."
+
+A silver-handled reading-glass was brought, and Grannie considered
+her section again: "The Yarra," she read out, "I wonder if you can
+tell me where the Yarra is, Mollie?"
+
+"Never heard of it," said Mollie, shaking her head. "Yankalilla.
+Where's that? Goomooroo, Wanrearah, Koolywurtie. _What_ names! I am
+glad I am not a railway guard in this place, wherever it may be."
+
+"Aha, Miss Mollie, I am cleverer than you are with all your Oxford
+and Cambridge examinations!" Grannie exclaimed triumphantly, "for I
+can tell you where the Yarra is--it is the river upon which
+Melbourne is built, and Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, and
+Victoria is a colony in Australia."
+
+"Australia!" Mollie exclaimed, a little startled. "How funny--I mean
+how interesting!" It was certainly rather odd, she thought, that her
+difficulty should be solved so promptly, for now, of course, she
+might ask as many questions as she pleased and no one would wonder
+at her sudden interest in our distant colonies. In the meantime
+Grannie and Aunt Mary were both too much engrossed in the puzzle to
+notice the rather peculiar expression on Mollie's face, and soon she
+too became absorbed in the puzzle under her eyes, and forgot for the
+moment the stranger puzzle in her mind.
+
+When Mollie's breakfast-tray came up next morning, the first thing
+she saw on it was a letter from Dick. She seized it and tore it
+open.
+
+
+"DEAR MOLL,
+
+"I've had the rummest experience you ever. Young Outram says it was
+-pyh- -psy- -pysh---ghosts, you know. He says I must tell you
+_exactly_ what happened and not leave out anything, because quite
+small things might turn out to be most important. Young Outram is
+great on ghosts and Spirits, he says it is because he was born in
+the East. It happened like this. Y.O. and me were sitting together
+at our desk, which is at the back beside the window. It is a very
+good desk. Old Nosey was talking about _Macbeth_--or perhaps it was
+_Paradise Lost,_ I am not sure of this point, because sometimes he
+does one and sometimes the other, according to the mood he is in.
+But it was one of them. Y.O. and I were making a list of Probable
+Players in next term's 1st XV, and we both said 'Jenkyns will have
+left', at the same time, so we hooked little fingers and said
+Kipling, and were wishing a wish when all of a sudden, _without the
+slightest warning_ there appeared, sitting on _our desk,_ the most
+absolutely top-hole parrot I ever saw in my life. We sat staring,
+because, you see, we never saw the beast fly in, and if it flew
+through the window we _must_ have seen it, because of my arm being
+on the window-sill. While we were still staring I _distinctly_ heard
+your voice say, 'Do come here, Dick.' Just those words and then no
+more. Then the parrot vanished absolutely, tail and everything,
+though it was the finest parrot's tail I ever saw in my life. I can
+tell you, Moll, it made me sit up hearing you like that. Y.O. said
+my freckles came out like a rash because I got almost pale under
+them. I wish I'd seen myself. Then we made the astonishing discovery
+that none of the other chaps had seen the parrot, in fact they say
+it is a cock-and-bull story, but we are sitting tight because of the
+phyc-thingummy. Young O. says that whatever it is he has to be in it
+too, because most probably it was owing to his peculiar Indian
+ghostiness that we saw it at all. I don't quite agree, but anyhow
+that's what he says, and he'd better be in. Please write by return
+of post if you can explain this phenomenon. We hope you aren't dead.
+
+"Yours affec.,
+
+"DICK."
+
+
+Mollie read this letter through twice, then laid it down and ate her
+egg and toast without thinking much of what she was doing. She felt
+rather startled again; things were certainly queerish. Either her
+vivid dream had penetrated to Dick's brain--and such experiences
+were not altogether unknown between the twins--or else--or else
+Prudence really _had_ come yesterday, and there was something in
+that story of the Time-travellers. So the experiment had worked too.
+She remembered the brilliant parrot.
+
+She could not make up her mind how much of her story she might tell
+to Dick. Her vow had only applied to grown-ups, and since the
+Campbells had helped her to wish Dick over, presumably they would
+allow her to take him into her confidence. But would he believe such
+an unlikely story--and what about Young Outram? They had not
+bargained for two boys. She decided to wait and see if Prudence came
+again, and, in the meantime, to write and tell Dick that she was
+alive and well, and that some explanation of his most extraordinary
+vision would certainly be forthcoming sooner or later.
+
+The morning passed much more quickly than the previous morning had
+done. Mollie and Grannie worked hard at the jig-saw puzzle, and,
+without breaking her word by the smallest fraction, Mollie contrived
+to get a considerable amount of information about Australia from
+Grannie. Not, of course, that she was totally ignorant on the
+subject of our Australian colonies, but her knowledge was vague, and
+her interest before this time had been so faint that it was hardly
+worth mentioning. Grannie, on the other hand, had had a brother and
+many friends in Australia, and had, at one time or another,
+corresponded with a number of people there. She was able to tell
+Mollie several thrilling tales of bush fires, of the gold-fields,
+and of Ned Kelly, the great bushranger. But in none of her stories
+did the name of the Campbells appear.
+
+After lunch Mollie was again tucked up on her sofa and told to take
+a little nap. Grannie was somewhat amused to be asked for the
+photograph-album again. "Bairns have queer fancies," she thought to
+herself, as she laid it on Mollie's lap. "Don't look too long, my
+lamb," she said aloud. "Try and go to sleep. You were all the better
+yesterday. There is Aunt Mary playing the piano--dear me, it is long
+since I heard that tune!"
+
+When Mollie was left alone she opened the album, lay back on her
+cushions, and stared hard at the picture of prim little Prudence.
+
+"_Now_ we shall see! Was it a dream, or will she come again? That is
+the question."
+
+But nothing happened. Prudence stared solemnly and stolidly back,
+looking almost too good for human nature's daily food.
+
+"But she wasn't, I feel sure she wasn't, even if it _was_ all a
+dream. Oh--_how_ disappointing! I did hope that parrot of Dick's
+meant something, and I do so want to see those children again and
+know what happened next. Besides, it would be thrilling to be a
+Time-traveller--one could see all sorts of things."
+
+As she meditated over her disappointment Mollie turned the pages of
+the album, looking rather listlessly at the other children, and
+deciding that none was so attractive as Prudence, till she came to a
+group of three girls and a boy. She looked closer, then stretched
+out her hand for the reading-glass and looked again: "I do believe
+it is--yes, it _is_--Hugh and Prudence and Grizzel and Baby! How I
+_wish_ they would come alive!"
+
+Even as she said the last word she saw a smile dawn upon Prue's
+face. She did not drop the album this time but held tightly on to
+it, closed her eyes, and counted twenty. When she opened them there
+stood Prue, looking as good and sweet as ever.
+
+"Oh, I _am_ glad to see you!" Mollie exclaimed, sitting up and
+holding out her hands. "I thought it was all a dream, and that you
+were not coming. You will take me with you again, won't you? I did
+love yesterday."
+
+Prudence smiled and took Mollie's hands in her own. "We need not
+waste time talking to-day," she said. "Listen to the music."
+
+Mollie shut her eyes and listened to Aunt Mary, who just then began
+to sing--Mollie could hear the words quite plainly:
+
+  "Oft in the stilly night,
+  Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
+  Fond memory brings the light
+  Of other days around me."
+
+They were standing on a rough deeply rutted cart-track high up on a
+hill-side. Behind them the hill rose steeply, so thickly wooded that
+Mollie could not see plainly to the top. Before her it fell in a
+gentle slope to a narrow valley, through which ran a shallow creek
+with green banks on either side. Straight before her, half-way up
+the opposite hill, she saw a white cottage covered with a scarlet
+flowering creeper. It had casement windows all wide open, and a
+trellised porch. The garden of the cottage reached to the foot of
+the hill, and for three-quarters of its length was filled with rows
+of vines, looking like green lines ruled on a brown slate.
+
+On one side of the little vineyard Mollie could see a path winding
+up the hill, twisting in and out between vines and overhanging trees
+till it lost itself in a flower-garden, which made such a splash of
+rosy pink and flaming scarlet that Mollie thought it might have been
+spilt out of a sunset.
+
+By the roadside at her feet sat Grizzel, red curls still bobbing
+round her head, and apparently the very same blue overall still
+clothing her slim little body. She was moulding a lump of wet clay,
+shaping it into a bowl, pinching here, smoothing there, patting and
+pressing with both little grubby hands. On a strip of grass before
+her stood a long row of golden balls, glittering in the sunshine as
+if they had newly left a jeweller's shop.
+
+Prudence stood beside Mollie, rolling a clay ball round and round in
+her hands; and Mollie discovered presently that she herself was also
+rolling a lump of sticky stiff mud into some sort of shape, she was
+not sure what, but it seemed very important that it should be
+exactly right.
+
+As she watched the other two children, she saw Grizzel rise to her
+feet and run a few steps along the road to where, on the upper
+slope, a wedge had been sliced out of the hill, leaving a three-
+cornered open space which glittered curiously. This apparently was
+where the golden balls came from, for Grizzel stooped down, and
+lifting a handful of shining sand let it filter evenly through her
+fingers over her bowl. She then set the bowl on the ground, and
+lightly rubbed the gold sand into its surface. She repeated this
+process three times, then straightened herself, rubbed her gritty
+hands on her overall, shook the curls out of her eyes, and said:
+
+"It's quite a nice bowl. If _only_ we could make them hold water,
+Prue, it would do beautifully for Mamma's Russian violets."
+
+As Grizzel spoke Mollie suddenly realized that she knew where she
+was. They were in "the hills", across the way was their summer
+cottage, and those blue-green trees were gum trees. She remembered
+the long road she had seen from the Look-out, and how she had longed
+to follow it and see what lay behind those hills.
+
+She carried her ball along to the wedge in the hill-side and rolled
+it in the golden sand, rubbing it and sprinkling it as she had seen
+Grizzel do, and soon it took on a splendid yellow shine.
+
+"It looks very nice, Mollie," said Grizzel. "I like the way you've
+shaped it like an orange. I wonder if I could make a bunch of
+cherries--I think I will try to-morrow. Put it here beside mine; it
+is the hottest place."
+
+Mollie stopped and put her ball--which she now saw she _had_ shaped
+like an orange--beside Grizzel's on the sunny patch of grass. Then
+she stood up and looked round her again.
+
+"Where is Hugh?" she asked, "and Baby, and your father and mother?"
+
+"I think that is Hugh prowling among the roses over the way,"
+Prudence answered, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking
+across the valley at the garden. "What is he doing, I wonder--he
+seems to have lost something! Baby is with Bridget. Papa and Mamma
+haven't come up yet. Miss Hilton is supposed to be taking care of
+us, but she is rather a goose."
+
+"All the better for us," said Grizzel. "If she were strict and fussy
+we wouldn't have nearly such a nice time as we do. You have only to
+say snake to Miss Hilton and she is ready to faint; it is useful
+sometimes."
+
+"Why should you say snake?" asked Mollie, feeling rather relieved to
+hear that the elders of the family were away.
+
+"Because there are snakes about, and she is terrified of them,"
+Prudence explained.
+
+"Oh dear--so am I, horribly frightened!" Mollie exclaimed. "I never
+saw a snake in my life except in the Zoo." "Then how do you know you
+are frightened of them?" Grizzel asked. "You only have to be a
+little firm with them and they won't do you any harm. I have lived
+in Australia for years and years and have never once been bitten."
+
+"I hope I will never meet one when I am alone," Mollie said, shaking
+an unconvinced head.
+
+While the other children counted their balls, dried their hands, and
+tied on their sunbonnets, Mollie stood still and gazed about her.
+The country she saw looked strange and unfamiliar to her eyes. So
+far as she could see there seemed to be few trees but gum trees,
+with their monotonous foliage and gaunt grey trunks, so different
+from the mossy trunks at home in English woods. Here and there one
+had fallen, and lay like a giant skeleton on the ground. On all
+sides were hills, not very high, but rolling one behind the other
+like waves, some wooded and some bare of trees and covered only with
+short grass and rough boulders. Over everything was the same
+beautiful clear sunlight that had impressed Mollie so much on her
+first visit, and the air was warm and soft. She thought of the dull
+street at home in North Kensington, with brick houses all crowded up
+together and dingy little back-yards, and she wished that her family
+could come and live in this wide and sunny country.
+
+As she stood, a cry came across the valley.
+
+"Coo-eee! Cooo-eeeee!"
+
+"There's Bridget calling for tea," said Prudence. "Come on quick;
+I'm as hungry as a hunter, and Biddy said she would make some
+damper, because we are rather short of bread."
+
+"What is damper?" asked Mollie, as she followed the other two down
+the hill. "Is it wet bread?"
+
+"Don't you know what _damper_ is?" Grizzel asked, with round eyes.
+"It is unleavened bread--you know, like the Children of Israel ate.
+Sometimes we find manna too, lying underneath the trees, but I don't
+like it much. I am glad I am not a Child of Israel," she added; "I
+don't like that old Moses. Do you?"
+
+"I haven't thought about him very much," Mollie confessed; "I
+suppose he was all right in his own way."
+
+"He was so fond of Thou shalt not," Grizzel objected, "and I can't
+_bear_ thou shalt nots. If _I_ had made the commandments I should
+have said 'Thou oughtest not to commit murder, but if thou doest
+thou shalt be hung'. Don't you think that would be more
+interesting?"
+
+"No, I don't," Mollie answered decidedly, "I like things to be short
+and plain like Thou shalt not steal. Then you know where you are."
+
+Prudence looked disapprovingly at her sister. "You should not talk
+like that, Grizzel; it is flippant, and you know what Papa says
+about flippancy."
+
+Grizzel made a face but did not answer, and they went on in silence
+till they reached the foot of the hill. They crossed the little
+creek by stepping-stones, and walked slowly up the winding path, the
+vines with their ripening grapes on the one side, and on the other
+great cherry trees, laden with the largest and reddest cherries that
+Mollie had ever seen in her life. They hung down temptingly among
+the green leaves, dangling their little bunches in the most inviting
+way imaginable, some scarlet, some black, and some almost white, but
+all ripe and luscious. The children stretched up their hands and
+pulled some, which tasted as good as they looked.
+
+"I'm going to make cherry jam to-morrow," Grizzel said, dropping her
+stones on the ground and carefully pushing them into the soil with
+the heel of her boot. "I'm going to make the first beginnings of my
+fortune."
+
+"What fortune?" asked Mollie, throwing her stones away in the
+careless fashion of people who are accustomed to buying their fruit
+in shops.
+
+"My jam fortune," Grizzel answered. "Every year Mamma sends a case
+of jam home to Grandmamma, and this year I am going to put in twelve
+tins of my very own jam, and Grandmamma will sell it and put the
+money in the bank for me. She promised she would if I was a good
+girl, and I've been as good as it is possible for a human being to
+be."
+
+"But can _you_ make really-truly jam?" Mollie asked incredulously--
+Grizzel looked so small and young to be a maker of real jam in
+shoppy tins.
+
+"Grizzel is a _beautiful_ cook," said Prudence, with an air of great
+pride. "You wait till you taste her herring-shape, and her parsnip
+sauce. Mamma says that cooks are born, not made, and that Grizzel is
+born and I'm not made."
+
+Mollie felt an immense respect for Grizzel. Cooking was not her own
+strong point, as her Guide captain had informed her in plain
+language more than once, and in any case food at home was too
+precious for children to experiment with except under supervision--
+there could be no playing about with fruit and sugar for instance.
+She began to think that if there were some things she could teach
+these forty-years-ago children, there were also some things she
+could learn from them--a thought which would have given her mother
+much pleasure could she have seen into her daughter's mind at that
+moment.
+
+"Hullo, girls!" said Hugh, coming out of the garden as they drew
+near the cottage, "I've got an idea."
+
+[Illustration: GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA]
+
+Mollie turned to look at Hugh. He had grown a little taller, she
+thought, but was as clear-eyed and meditative as ever. And behind
+Hugh was the flower-garden, full of roses--thousands and thousands
+of roses, mostly pale pink. They were loose-petalled and exquisitely
+sweet. The children paused for a moment before going into the house,
+and all four sniffed up the delicate fragrance appreciatively.
+
+"That's my idea," said Hugh, with an extra loud sniff. "Scent! Let's
+make attar of roses. It costs a guinea a drop to buy, and we could
+make bottles full. I've been examining the rose-bushes--they are
+simply packed full of buds behind the flowers. I have been reading
+about it. It's quite easy to do; you merely have to extract the
+essential oil from the petals and there you are. I'll show you after
+tea."
+
+They passed through the porch into the house. There was no hall;
+they walked straight into the sitting-room, where a table was spread
+with tea, and Miss Hilton, a rather faded-looking lady of middling
+age, was already seated behind the tea-pot.
+
+"Go and wash your hands, children," she said, in a voice that
+matched her looks, "and smooth your hair. I am _surprised_ at you
+coming into the room like this. I don't know what your visitor will
+think, I am sure. Children have _very_ different manners in
+England."
+
+Mollie glanced round at the other three. She herself stood behind
+Miss Hilton and was therefore not within that lady's line of vision.
+She winked largely with her left eye, and a smile of relief
+travelled round the room.
+
+Tea was a silent meal in spite of the festive damper, which was so
+good that Mollie thought it must have alleviated the unfortunate lot
+of the Children of Israel considerably. Hugh was thinking out his
+plan for making attar of roses; Prue was day-dreaming about nothing
+in particular, as she was too fond of doing; Grizzel's mind was
+wandering away to golden bowls, golden cherries, and other possible
+and some quite impossible golden achievements; while Mollie listened
+to Baby, who carried on a long and intimate conversation with a
+family of bread-and-butter--otherwise the beddy-buts--which had
+found a temporary home upon her plate. Miss Hilton poured out tea
+absent-mindedly, and seldom spoke except to rebuke someone for
+putting elbows on the table.
+
+As soon as the meal was over the children went into the garden
+again, and, once outside, their tongues began to move.
+
+"I shall nab Baby's bronchitis-kettle," Hugh announced, "and make a
+distiller, and we can begin to-morrow. You girls will have to help
+me, for I must watch the distilling all the time, and someone must
+keep me supplied with fresh rose-petals."
+
+"I can't do much, because I'm going to make jam," said Grizzel, "and
+I want Prue and Mollie to help me to gather cherries. I've got one
+or two new ideas"--Mollie thought the family seemed great on ideas--
+"but, if you'll solder up my jam tins, I'll help with your attar."
+
+"I'll tell you what," said Prue, "we'll have a secret breakfast."
+
+"What's a secret breakfast?" asked Mollie.
+
+"You'll see in a minute," Prue answered. "It's a lovely thing. Then
+we'll get up and pull the cherries and cut them open, and we can
+pick the roses afterwards, when they are warm and dry."
+
+"Then we had better get the things ready now," said Grizzel.
+
+So while Hugh went off to a little old hut, which served them for a
+playroom, to build up his distillery, the three girls set out to
+inspect the cherry trees, and engaged in the pleasing task of
+tasting a few cherries off each tree to decide which had the finest
+flavour.
+
+"I think they are all absolutely topping," said Mollie. "I don't
+know how you can tell which is best."
+
+"What funny words you use," said Grizzel. "Topping!"
+
+"Well--top-hole then, or ripping, or great, or first-class, or jolly
+good."
+
+Both hearers laughed. "You had better not let Miss Hilton hear you,"
+said Prue, "or she will tell Mamma, and then you will have to write
+out 'topping' a hundred times."
+
+Grizzel led the way to the flower-garden, which was laid out on the
+terrace immediately below the cottage. A sanded path ran along by
+the rose-bed, which was banked up for two feet or so to keep the
+soil from washing down in the rainy season. Prudence and Grizzel
+stopped at a corner where, in a sheltered angle, lay a low pile of
+bricks built up four-square with a hollow centre.
+
+"This is our fire-place," Prue explained to Mollie. "When we get up
+very early we make a fire here and boil tea and have a secret
+breakfast, because proper breakfast isn't till nine o'clock when
+Miss Hilton is mistress, and we get so hungry--besides, it is a
+lark."
+
+"Write out 'lark' one hundred times, my dear Prudence," said
+Grizzel, in a voice so exactly like Miss Hilton's that Mollie looked
+round with a start, and the other two laughed.
+
+They gathered sticks, which they carried into the kitchen to be
+dried, Bridget being a good-natured conspirator, and they collected
+sugar, tea, and damper for their feast. Darkness falls early in
+Australia, and the children decided to go to bed in good time, so
+that they should waken fresh in the morning. Mollie thought that
+their bedroom was a delightful place, quite different from a London
+bedroom. It had a door to itself, with a flight of wooden steps
+leading down to the garden, so that the children could slip out
+without disturbing the household. Mollie thought this very romantic.
+
+"You won't think it very romantic if some old bushranger gets in
+through the night and shoots you dead," Grizzel cheerfully
+suggested.
+
+"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prudence said reprovingly. "What is the use of
+frightening Mollie like that? You never saw a bushranger in your
+life."
+
+But a London girl, who has been through a dozen air-raids without
+losing any nerve, is not likely to disturb herself over a possible
+but improbable bushranger, and indeed Mollie was blissfully ignorant
+on the subject in spite of Grannie's tales; so she went to bed quite
+peacefully in the little camp-bed, and lay for a time watching the
+brilliant stars shine through the wide-open window. The lovely night
+scents floated in with the soft breeze, and Mollie could hear
+strange birds calling to their mates at an hour when most English
+birds are in bed and fast asleep.
+
+The first rosy streaks of dawn saw the three girls making their
+morning toilet at the pump, where the water was cold even to the
+touch of English Mollie, but it was freshening, and they emerged
+from their splashes with pink cheeks and ravenous appetites. The
+"inventor" loved his bed and did not join in the morning revels. (So
+boys _were_ lazy lie-a-beds in Father's young days, thought Mollie.)
+
+Prudence and Mollie went straight to the cherry trees with their
+baskets, while Grizzel lighted the fire and prepared the secret
+breakfast. She called them before the first baskets were quite full.
+The fire was burning cheerfully, sending long streamers of wood
+smoke into the morning air. On the bricks sat a billy-can full of
+water just on the boil, and, as it bubbled up, Grizzel threw in a
+small handful of tea, giving it a stir round with a cherry twig. She
+let it bubble again while she counted ten, then lifted the can to
+one side and put the lid on. She had begged a cup of warm, frothy
+milk from the milk-boy's pail as he came up the hill. The damper was
+sitting on the hot bricks, and Grizzel had gathered a plateful of
+strawberries from the berry-bed at the foot of the hill.
+
+They sat down on the sandy path, holding their mugs of steaming tea
+in one hand and their damper in the other, large juicy strawberries
+taking the place of jam. Mollie thought it was the most exquisitely
+delightful breakfast she had ever tasted in her life. The sun had
+risen and was sending his beautiful rays along the valley; they fell
+upon the roses and heliotrope in the garden and on the misty blue-
+green of the gum trees on the hill opposite. As the children munched
+in silent enjoyment, their eyes wandering here and there, one long
+shaft of light fell straight upon the patch of golden sand, so that
+it glittered as though it were the door to Aladdin's cave. Prue
+reached out her hand and pulled down a branch of sweet-scented
+geranium, crushing a leaf and holding it to Mollie's nose.
+
+"Isn't it nice here, Mollie?" she said.
+
+"It's perfectly heavenly," Mollie answered, with a sigh. "Why can't
+all the world be as nice as this, and why do people _ever_ live in
+streets?"
+
+They tidied up the remains of their breakfast, and were soon back at
+work in the cherry trees. By nine o'clock they had filled four
+baskets and had stoned more than half, and laid them in a shallow
+pan with sugar over them "to draw", as Grizzel explained. They
+cracked the kernels and took out the tiny white nuts, and last of
+all Grizzel added a good handful of gooseberries.
+
+"That's my idea," she said, "it will help the cherries to jell. I
+think I will pop in some red currants too."
+
+"You _are_ clever," Mollie said admiringly. "I never in all my life
+saw a girl as young as you make jam."
+
+"When I am grown up," Grizzel said, sucking her sugary fingers as
+she spoke, "I am going to have a fruit-farm and make immense
+quantities of jam to send home. Grandmamma says our jam is the
+nicest she has tasted, especially our peach and apricot. I am going
+to try grape jam too, and I shall preserve mandarin oranges whole,
+and pineapples, and figs."
+
+Mollie suddenly remembered big tins of jam which used to arrive from
+Australia now and then, at a time when jam was very scarce and
+precious in London. She smiled to herself as she wondered if they
+had been Grizzel's jams--they might have been. At any rate they must
+have come from beautiful gardens like this.
+
+"If you do," she said to Grizzel, "put a picture of yourself and a
+cherry tree on the tin. It will look much prettier than 'Campbell's
+Jams'!"
+
+This made the children laugh, and they went in to their second
+breakfast feeling very cheerful and what Mollie called "pleased with
+life". The lazy inventor made his appearance halfway through the
+meal, looking still rather sleepy. "Come and see my distillery," he
+said, when breakfast was over, "I fixed it up last night."
+
+Hugh had set the bronchitis-kettle--always carried about with Baby,
+who was subject to croup--on the fire-place, and had fixed a long
+narrow jam-tin on to the end of the spout.
+
+"I put the roses and water into the kettle," he explained, "and they
+boil, and the steam comes out and drops into this cold tin and
+condenses. Then, when we have enough, we boil that up and condense
+again. Then we skim the oil that rises to the top, and that is attar
+of roses. It is perfectly simple."
+
+"It _sounds_ simple," said Mollie, "but--"
+
+"But what?" asked Hugh, with a frown.
+
+"Oh, I don't know--just but," said Mollie, in a hurry. "I don't know
+a thing about distilling; how many boilings will it take to collect
+a bottle of attar?"
+
+"A good many, but you must not forget that a bottle holds a great
+many drops, and each drop is worth a guinea, so that a lavender-
+water bottle will hold about three hundred guineas' worth."
+
+Mollie was greatly impressed. How easy it was to make fortunes in
+Australia! And how much pleasanter a way than Father's way, which
+meant living in a street and sighing over bills, and not making much
+of a fortune after all.
+
+The girls returned to the garden, and soon gathered enough petals
+for the first boiling. Hugh, in the meantime, lit the fire and
+fetched water from the rain-water tank. "It says water from a
+spring, in the book," he said, "but there's nothing like rain-water
+really for this kind of work."
+
+Soon Grizzel said she must go to her jam-making. Prudence stayed to
+help Hugh, and Mollie decided to hover between both fortune-building
+schemes, as she was too deeply interested in the results to wish to
+miss either. For an hour they worked hard, Mollie and Prudence
+bringing in fresh supplies of roses, rain-water, and logs of wood,
+for the fire had to be kept well stocked. The room got very hot, for
+Hugh would not allow any windows to be opened, and a good part of
+the steam managed to escape in spite of all his care. Indeed it
+seemed to Mollie that more steam got into the room than into the
+tin. After the third instalment of roses and water she asked if she
+could be spared to go and see how the jam was getting on.
+
+"You might bring back some bread and skimmings," said Prudence.
+"Working like this makes you so hungry."
+
+The day was warm, but it was refreshing to get out of doors after
+the steamy atmosphere of the playroom. Mollie sauntered along,
+keeping in the shade of the trees, a little tired after her early
+rising. She could see Bridget and Baby at the bottom of the garden
+gathering gooseberries for a pudding. Baby's pink sun-bonnet bobbed
+about like a rose going for a walk in the berry-bed. Before she
+reached the kitchen door she began to smell something uncommonly
+like burning sugar.
+
+"I expect it has spilt on the stove," she thought; "that pot is
+pretty heavy for Grizzel to lift."
+
+The smell got stronger and stronger, and when Mollie reached the
+kitchen there was not only a smell but smoke. There was no sign of
+Grizzel, nor of anyone else; the house was silent and empty but for
+the sizzling and smoking of the boiled-over jam. Mollie ran to the
+stove--a funny flat arrangement, different from the stoves of her
+acquaintance. The jam had evidently been boiling over for some time,
+for not only the saucepan, the stove, and the fender, but even the
+floor was covered with a dark-brown sticky syrup. She trod carefully
+to the fire-place and lifted the pan to one side, the smoke and
+steam making her eyes water.
+
+"Making fortunes is pretty hot work in Australia," she muttered to
+herself. "If I made many there wouldn't be much of me left to enjoy
+them with. Where on earth is Grizzel?"
+
+She found her in their bedroom, arranging some vine leaves and green
+grapes in her golden bowl, quite oblivious of a world which
+contained jam.
+
+"I think your jam is burning, Grizzel--I am afraid it is rather
+badly burnt."
+
+"My jam!" said Grizzel, coming back to the world of every day.
+"Goodness me! I forgot all about the jam." She hastily dumped her
+bowl down on the window-sill, and flew to the kitchen, followed by
+Mollie.
+
+"Oh dear, dear, dear!" she cried, when her eyes fell upon the scene
+of devastation. "Oh, my jam! my jam! Oh, why am I _both_ a cook and
+an artist? One half of me is _always_ getting into the way of the
+other half! Oh, Mollie--my lovely, beautiful jam!"
+
+"Let's taste it and see; _perhaps_ it isn't burnt," Mollie
+suggested. But one sip was enough. "Ab-so-lute wash-out!" was her
+verdict. Grizzel seized the pot by the handle and made for the door.
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Mollie, following her.
+
+"Bury it," said Grizzel, laying down the pot and seizing a spade.
+She rapidly dug a shallow hole, poured the sticky black mixture into
+it and tossed back the earth.
+
+"And they were so pretty a few hours ago," she wailed. "Why on earth
+did I go and spoil them like that! Oh, Mollie, I am a cruel girl!"
+
+"It isn't _really_ any more cruel than eating them," said Mollie
+consolingly. "I'd just as soon be burnt as eaten myself--only
+perhaps one might be cooked first and eaten afterwards. I must say
+it is rather hard lines on mutton when you come to think of it."
+
+Grizzel took the blackened pot to the pump, filled it with water,
+and carried it back to the kitchen. The fire was nearly out, and
+logs had to be piled on and blown up with the bellows before the pot
+could be set on again. Grizzel looked round for a towel to clear up
+the horrible mess with, but Bridget had washed her towels that
+morning and they were all hanging out to dry on the line.
+
+"Get a newspaper and crumple it up," suggested Mollie; "wet it in
+the pot-water."
+
+When Bridget and Baby appeared at the door, two very hot and sticky
+children were surrounded by a litter of crumpled, wet, black
+newspapers, and the stove was as far as you can possibly imagine
+from being clean.
+
+"Holy saints!" said Bridget.
+
+Nothing could have looked less like holy saints than Mollie and
+Grizzel did at that moment. They stood up in the midst of the ruins,
+and Mollie waited for the skies to fall. But Biddy was a good-
+natured soul.
+
+"An' me stove new cleaned this very mornin'--you an' yir jam! Be off
+wid ye!" flapping the children out of the way with her apron as she
+spoke.
+
+"Come and wash," said Grizzel, catching up a tin basin from the
+porch as they went out.
+
+When they were moderately clean again they went back to the playroom
+to see how the scent-makers were faring. They found Hugh and
+Prudence as red as lobsters; the big kettle had been moved and a
+tiny one put in its place.
+
+"I thought I'd better try how the experiment was getting on," Hugh
+explained to Mollie and Grizzel. "There's no use doing all the roses
+till we see if it's all right; so I'm boiling up the distilled water
+now."
+
+He peered into a doll's milk-jug, which was fastened on to the end
+of the little spout. "There is a little. We'll just try for oil," he
+said, lifting the jug off and carrying it to the window. There was
+about half a teaspoonful of water in the bottom.
+
+"It looks oily; I guess there will be one drop." He sniffed
+anxiously as he spoke. "And it does smell of roses too, by jiminy!"
+
+They all sniffed in turn, and agreed that there really was an
+undeniable smell of roses. "And it _might_ have only smelt of wet
+tin," Hugh said. "Look here, Prue, don't empty that little kettle.
+We'll boil it up again and collect another drop. Put some more logs
+on the fire."
+
+Prudence looked at Hugh with a slightly exasperated expression; she
+was very hot and rather tired: "Hugh Campbell, you know as well as I
+do that there is nothing but tinny water left in that kettle. If you
+think anyone is going to pay a guinea a drop for scent called Wet
+Tin you are a goose. I wouldn't buy it if it was the only scent in
+the world."
+
+Hugh was not discouraged. "My _idea_ is right," he said. "I shall
+make a larger distiller and try again. There's plenty more roses.
+Next time we are by the sea I shall look for ambergris. It is found
+floating on the shores of warm countries, and all scent should have
+ambergris in it, properly speaking."
+
+"I shall try again too," said Grizzel. "There's plenty more
+cherries, and a new barrel of sugar came yesterday. After all,
+everybody has ups and downs when they are making fortunes. I'll take
+good care never to burn my jam again."
+
+"I'm not really sure if attar of roses is worth while," Hugh said
+thoughtfully, his eyes on the tiny milk-jug in his hand; "only rich
+people could afford to buy it. If you want to make a fortune it is
+better to make something that everyone wants, rich and poor. Soap
+might do."
+
+"Jam," said Grizzel.
+
+"_I'm_ not sure if it is right to make fortunes at all," said Mollie
+slowly.
+
+"Why not?" asked the other three all at once.
+
+"Because it doesn't seem fair, somehow. Some people are so
+frightfully rich, and some people haven't even enough to eat. My
+mother goes to the children's hospital every week, and sometimes she
+takes me. You can't _think_ what some of the poor babies are like--
+and then you go outside and see rich, _rich_ women in splendid
+motor-cars--I mean carriages," she corrected herself, "and it does
+make you feel things aren't fair, and I do like fairness."
+
+The Australian children were silent for a minute or two.
+
+"But if no one was rich no one could give," Grizzel said at last.
+"We know very rich people here, and they do lovely kind things. Mrs.
+Basil Hill sends us a packing-case of _exquisite_ oranges every
+summer, and when she comes to see Mamma she almost always brings us
+a surprise packet--last time it was five pounds of the most
+beautiful sweets in Rundle Street, and the time before it was all
+Miss Alcott's books."
+
+"But if everybody was the same, people wouldn't have to give you
+things," said Mollie. "You'd have them yourself."
+
+"Then we would never get a surprise," said Grizzel, "and that would
+be horribly dull. Don't you think it would be dull if everybody was
+exactly the same?"
+
+"I suppose it would," Mollie admitted, with a sigh, feeling that she
+had not presented her case attractively; "but I think they might be
+samer than they are."
+
+"There's no use talking," Hugh said decisively. "Australia is full
+of fortunes waiting to be made. I heard Papa say so. And the early
+bird gets the worm, and the better the bird the better it is for
+everyone all round."
+
+"Except the worm," said Grizzel.
+
+They all laughed. "I wish I had a brother instead of three sisters,"
+Hugh remarked, emptying the contents of the tiny milk-jug over a
+handkerchief which had once been clean. "A brother would be some
+use. Where's yours?" he asked Mollie. "Did he get our message?"
+
+This reminded Mollie of Dick's letter, which impressed the
+Australians as much as it had impressed Mollie.
+
+"So the next thing--the next thing----" she repeated, looking round
+at the other three children. "What _is_ the next thing to do?"
+
+"We can't tell you," Prudence said, with a funny little smile,
+"you'll have to fix it yourself in the end."
+
+"Cooo-eeeee!" sounded from the cottage.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Cherry jam for tea to-day, fresh from the preserving-pan," Aunt
+Mary was saying. "That will be a treat for you, Mollie, my dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+The Treasure-hunters or The Duke's Nose
+
+
+"Cherry jam is certainly very _runny_," said Aunt Mary at tea-time.
+
+"Do you put a handful of gooseberries into it?" Mollie asked rather
+dreamily, as she tried in vain to spread her scone tidily.
+
+"Gooseberries! Why, no; I never thought of it. It might be quite a
+good idea."
+
+"Or red currants?" Mollie went on.
+
+"Red currants! Bless the child! I didn't know you were a cook,
+Mollie."
+
+"Neither I am," said Mollie, rousing herself up to the fact that she
+was back in Chauncery, and must set a watch upon her tongue. Why was
+it, she wondered, that she forgot Chauncery so much more when she
+was with those other children than she forgot the children when she
+was at Chauncery? "I once heard a person say they put gooseberries
+and red currants into cherry jam, and I suddenly remembered," she
+told Aunt Mary.
+
+"Well, it is too late for cherries, but I will try it for the
+strawberries to-morrow. It will be quite an interesting experiment."
+
+Mollie resolutely pushed her thoughts about the cherry garden and
+its occupants into the background, and gave her whole mind to a game
+of patience with Grannie, who was getting a little tired of jig-saw.
+But when that was over, and Grannie was absorbed in casting on a
+stocking-top with an intricate pattern, while Aunt Mary wrote
+letters, she began again to think and wonder about her curious
+journey, which for some reason seemed less strange to-day than it
+had done yesterday. She pondered over ways and means to get Dick
+across, or over, or through, "or whatever you call it when you
+travel in Time", she thought; "back might be the best word. I do
+_wish_ I could tell Aunt Mary."
+
+She looked thoughtfully at her aunt, whose head was bent over her
+writing, the smooth bands of her silky, brown hair shining brightly
+in the lamp-light. No doubt some, perhaps most, grown-ups would
+scoff at her tale if she told it, Mollie thought. Grown-up people as
+a rule love best to jog along on well-trodden, safe, commonplace
+paths, and avoid adventurous by-ways, but Aunt Mary, Mollie felt
+sure, was an anti-jogger, so to speak, and would always choose
+adventures if she had a choice. "It's funny to think," Mollie
+reflected, "that she can't be so very much younger than Mrs.
+Campbell is--was--is--was then. I suppose she is about thirty-five,
+and Mrs. Campbell forty or so--she looks--looked old enough to be
+Aunt Mary's mother. Being good at games keeps her young; she can
+beat me to a frazzle at golf and tennis; and she is frightfully keen
+on aeroplanes; I'm sure she would fly if it weren't for Grannie. I
+wonder why she never got married?"
+
+Mollie had not yet come to the age of sentiment, but now and then
+she reached forward a little and surveyed its possibilities, and now
+she paused awhile to muse upon the subject of her aunt's
+spinsterhood. Not for long, however; she decided that Aunt Mary must
+have had excellent reasons of her own for remaining single, and
+returned to the more pressing problem of how to get Dick into the
+Campbells' garden. Finally she thought of a plan worth trying.
+
+"Grannie, may I have the loan of one of your photographs?" she
+asked. "Dick has a way of copying them with a thing he has that
+makes them look like drawings, and the old-fashioned ones are the
+prettiest."
+
+"By all means, if he will be careful," Grannie answered, nine-tenths
+of her mind being fixed on her new pattern and only one-tenth upon
+her grandchild's peculiar fancy for Victorian photographs. So Mollie
+wrote a short letter to her brother, enclosing the group which had
+worked the magic charm for herself that afternoon. She put it into
+the evening post-bag with a sigh. "If that doesn't do it I _can't_
+think of anything else," she said to herself.
+
+It is remarkable how quickly one becomes used to a new routine.
+Already Mollie was making more use of her hands and head because she
+could not use her feet. She was fond of writing, and decided next
+morning to begin an account of her strange adventure while it was
+still fresh in her mind. In the intervals of other plans for her
+future career she had dreams of becoming a writer of books, but her
+difficulty hitherto had been that the usual sort of book is so
+ordinary, and she had never been able to think of anything
+remarkably unusual to write about. The autobiography of a person who
+could live in various periods of the Christian Era might turn out to
+be quite interesting, she thought, if only people would believe that
+it was true. The trouble was that most likely they would think she
+was inventing it, "and anyone can _invent_ any old thing. And this
+is only the beginning of my adventures. When I have thoroughly
+learnt how to Time-travel I will go back much further--perhaps to
+the French Revolution, and watch people being guillotined."
+
+She scribbled diligently in the thick exercise-book, which Aunt Mary
+produced without once asking what it was wanted for. "It just shows--"
+Mollie murmured gratefully; "some people would have teased me to
+death."
+
+And so time passed, and half-past two came round again in the usual
+inevitable way, and Mollie lay expecting Prudence as calmly as
+though she were coming from next door. She had the album on her lap,
+and was turning the pages in search of a new photograph, when in the
+twinkling of an eye Prue was there.
+
+"We don't need that now," she said, "but we must have Aunt Mary's
+tunes. Where is she?"
+
+"Oh dear, dear, I forgot!" Mollie cried in dismay. "I do believe
+Aunt Mary is making strawberry jam, and I went and told her about
+putting in gooseberries and red currants, and her head will be full
+of them and she will forget me!"
+
+But the lullaby had not been forgotten. At that very moment the
+piano began--a tune Mollie knew well this time, for she had often
+heard the American soldiers sing it in London:
+
+  "Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary,
+  Far from the old folks at home".
+
+"Give me your hand--quick," said Prue in a whisper.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mollie found herself standing on a wide beach in the curve of a
+beautiful bay. Before her lay the sea, dark blue in the distance, a
+clear emerald green by the shore. To the right of her the beach
+stretched as far as she could see, firm yellow sand on the lower
+half, fine white silvery sand higher up. On the left it only ran for
+a couple of miles or so and then ended in rocks, over which the sea
+threw a cool white spray. Behind her, Mollie saw, when she turned,
+the line of the beach was followed by sandhills, some covered with
+low-growing scrub and some quite bare and treeless, shining like
+snow in the hot sunlight.
+
+The children were all there. At a little distance from where she
+stood Mollie could see Hugh and Prudence, Hugh lightly clad in a
+swimming-suit, and Prue with her skirts rolled up and her feet bare.
+A wide sun-hat covered her head, and her brown curls were fastened
+back with a clasp, which made her look older, Mollie thought.
+
+The two children were hauling a large, square, flat object down to
+the sea, Hugh pulling in front with ropes, and Prudence pushing
+behind.
+
+"I do believe it's the raft," thought Mollie. "This must be
+Brighton, and I suppose the summer holidays have come round again.
+It is a little difficult to keep up with Time here. I do _wish_ Dick
+could come!"
+
+Grizzel was sitting on the beach close beside her, and seemed to be
+gathering shells from a little pale-rose patch on the sand at her
+feet. She was very absorbed in her task, but she looked up at Mollie
+with a smile, apparently not at all surprised to see her there. She
+was dressed, like Prue, in a turned-up overall and wore a wide hat,
+which hid the red curls from view and gave her an unfamiliar look.
+Bridget was sitting not far from Grizzel, busily doing crochet-work
+and singing a song about a wild Irish boy, while her eyes wandered
+after Baby, who was singing a little song of her own invention about
+a poor lonely whale who had a loving heart. Higher up the beach, at
+the foot of the sandhills, Mollie could see Professor and Mrs.
+Campbell, one reading aloud and the other sewing.
+
+"Where shall I go first?" Mollie asked herself, "I think I'll go and
+see what Hugh and Prudence are doing."
+
+She found, when she began to walk, that she was bare-legged and
+bunchy about the skirts like the other girls, and that her head was
+covered with a sun-hat like theirs, a tanned Panama straw, light as
+a feather, and shading her eyes from the glare of sea and sand. The
+sun was very hot and the sand was warm under her feet.
+
+"Hullo! Here's Mollie the Jolly!" exclaimed Hugh, as she drew near.
+"Come along and lend a hand--we are just about to launch the good
+ship _Nancy Lee_ on her trial trip."
+
+Mollie examined the raft with deep interest. It was really very
+neatly made, the planks straight and smooth, and firmly held
+together by cross-bars underneath. There was a mast in the exact
+centre, with a sail at present close-reefed, and there was a pair of
+old oars which, Hugh explained, had been purchased from a boatman of
+his acquaintance. All round the raft were bunches of corks, several
+hundreds at least.
+
+"Did Prue and Grizzel find all those?" Mollie asked.
+
+"We all collected 'em," Hugh replied; "lots of people gave us corks--jolly
+old winebibbers they must be," he added ungratefully. "Now then--with
+a long, long pull and a strong, strong pull!"
+
+They got to the edge of the water, and the two girls waded in as far
+as they could go without getting their clothes wet, before the raft
+finally took to her natural element and rocked up and down on the
+smoothly rippling wavelets. A gentle breeze was blowing off the sea,
+but the tide was running out, which, Hugh remarked, was a good plan,
+as the raft would go out to sea with the tide and come back with the
+wind in her sail. He thought, however, that he would not carry any
+passengers on the first trip--in fact, to begin with, he would
+harness himself to his craft and pull her both out and in, "just
+till I see how she goes; she's got to find her sea-legs."
+
+The girls watched the raft and its owner depart into deep water;
+they saw Hugh climb on board, and decided that the passengers who
+sailed aboard the _Nancy Lee_ would be most suitably attired in
+bathing-dresses, as she appeared to slide along as much below the
+ocean as above it. After standing for some minutes they wandered
+along towards Grizzel, who was still sitting by the pale rosy patch
+on the sand. When they sat down beside her Mollie saw that the
+shells she was gathering were so tiny that they were hardly larger
+than a pin's head, and yet they were perfect in form and colour; she
+thought she had never seen anything more exquisite.
+
+"We thread them and make necklaces," Prudence explained; "they are
+so thin that you can stick a needle through them quite easily; they
+come in beds like this all along the beach. There are lots of lovely
+shells here, and sea-eggs too. We collect them sometimes, but our
+collections have such a way of getting lost somehow, they are always
+beginning over again and ending too soon."
+
+"Can you say 'She sells sea-shells' twenty times running, as fast as
+lightning?" asked Grizzel.
+
+"Not running as fast as lightning," Mollie answered, "but I could
+say it if I were walking rather slowly."
+
+"I couldn't," said Grizzel, taking no notice of Mollie's flippancy,
+"if I were to crawl at the rate of half an inch a year I should be
+saying 'She shells sea-shells' the whole time."
+
+"You are talking nonsense," said Prudence. "Come up and see Papa and
+Mamma."
+
+Mollie was greeted kindly by the older people. She had forgotten to
+ask if she was supposed to be a visitor or only spending the day
+with the Campbells, but gathered from Mamma's conversation that she
+was paying a visit and had arrived that morning. She wondered again
+how they heard about her coming; the children appeared to take her
+for granted, but, of course, _they_ knew she was a Time-traveller!
+
+As the girls sat by their elders, idly playing with the silvery sand
+and chatting to each other, a large steamship came in view, coming
+from the north and heading south-west. They all stopped working and
+talking as they watched her steaming along, a trail of smoke blowing
+behind her, smudging the blue sky with clouds, black at first and
+gradually fading to grey.
+
+"That's the English mail," Papa said at last; "she was due to leave
+the Semaphore at three o'clock to-day."
+
+They were silent again; the great ship drew nearer--now she was
+almost opposite.
+
+"Oh--John--_Home!"_ Mamma said. There was a tremble in her voice
+that made Prudence and Mollie look up--there were tears in her eyes.
+
+"I know, little wife, I know," Papa answered softly, putting a hand
+over the white hands which had dropped the busy needle.
+
+The girls rose to their feet and left Papa and Mamma. They went down
+to the edge of the shore, and stood watching the ship as she began
+to slip over the horizon.
+
+"Now she has begun to go down the Big Hill," said Prue. "She will
+sail for miles and miles and thousands of miles, and for days and
+nights and weeks across all that sea. I wonder if some children on
+the other side will be playing on that beach, and will watch her
+funnel climb over the top of the hill again and say: 'Here comes the
+Australian mail!'"
+
+Mollie did not answer. She could not remember ever taking much
+interest in the Australian mail. But in future she determined she
+would always watch when she had the chance, and wave a friendly hand
+to the incoming ships.
+
+Soon there was nothing to be seen of the big steamer but a trail of
+smoke, which lingered long in the sky.
+
+Prudence had fallen into a day-dream; and Mollie's eyes were roaming
+over the blue sea, when suddenly she caught sight of the raft
+bobbing about on the little waves, sometimes above and sometimes
+below. In the water in front of the raft she could see Hugh's head,
+like a round black ball--and--yes, she was not mistaken, there were
+two other round black balls which must also be heads. That was
+rather odd, she thought; she had not noticed any other boys about.
+
+"Look, Prue!" she exclaimed, catching Prue by the arm, "look--there
+is Hugh, and he has got someone with him--oh, _do_ you think he has
+rescued some drowning sailors?"
+
+Prue came out of her day-dream with a jerk, and brought her thoughts
+and her eyes back to earth, or rather to sea.
+
+"Yes, he _has_ someone with him," she said. "How funny!"
+
+As they gazed, the three swimmers turned round and, with a good deal
+of ducking and slipping, climbed aboard the raft, which triumphantly
+survived and remained afloat, though decidedly wet about the deck.
+They proceeded to unfurl the sail, which one boy held while the
+other two took to the oars, and, after some hard work, the _Nancy
+Lee_ was safely beached. Grizzel joined Mollie and Prudence, and the
+three girls watched the three boys, not offering to go and help with
+the raft because they felt a little shy of the strangers.
+
+Presently one of them turned round--and Mollie gave a jump. The
+boy's hair hung over his forehead in wet, black streaks, and he was
+dressed, or rather undressed, in a swimming-suit, the rest of him
+being wet, white skin; but in spite of this unusual appearance
+Mollie was almost sure--in fact she was quite sure--that it was
+Young Outram. And the other boy--who kept his back turned in a
+provoking way as he examined the raft--why, _that_ boy--yes, it
+surely was Dick! Mollie squealed and caught Prue by the arm:
+
+"It's Dick and Jerry Outram!" she exclaimed, jumping up and down
+with excitement. "Oh, Prue--have they swum all the way from London
+without any clothes?"
+
+Prudence laughed. "Mollie, you _are_ a goose! _Do_ you think they
+could swim fourteen thousand miles?"
+
+"Well how--? Oh, I forgot! It is so hard to remember about Time-
+travelling here! Oh, Prue, _how_ exciting it is!"
+
+At that moment Dick looked round and saw his sister. Both boys came
+racing along the sand towards the girls, kicking up their heels like
+young colts.
+
+"Cheerio!" cried Dick, as he pranced up. "What price school! How's
+this for a rag? Jolly old beano, I call it!"
+
+"What does he say?" asked Grizzel.
+
+"He says that school isn't much of a place, and that this is a great
+lark, and that he enjoys being here immensely," translated Mollie.
+"_Some_ psychical phenomena!" exclaimed Young Outram, prancing up in
+his turn.
+
+"I'm afraid we haven't got any," said Prudence politely.
+
+"And you forgot to say 'Please' if we had," said Grizzel, with a
+frown.
+
+"_What_ do they say?" asked Young Outram, looking puzzled.
+
+"Prudence thought you were asking for some what's-its-name-how-
+much," Mollie explained again.
+
+"What _does_ he mean then?" Grizzel asked.
+
+"He means that this is the loveliest magic that he ever heard of,"
+said Mollie. "You shouldn't use such long words, Jerry, and they
+aren't true either, for this is _not_ thingummy phenomena, it is
+simply common everyday magic."
+
+"There is no such thing as common magic," said Jerry.
+
+"There is," said Mollie.
+
+"There isn't," said Jerry.
+
+"What do you call it when your mother gives you a dirty little brown
+onion to put in the ground and you bring it back to her turned into
+a parrot-tulip?" asked Mollie.
+
+"Oh--if you--"
+
+"Stow it, Young Outram, you blighter," Dick interrupted. "Don't be
+such a silly old Juggins, making them ratty first go-off like that.
+Keep your hair on, Mollie, and don't get the hump over nothing. If
+you _must_ jaw about parrots, jaw about the dossy chap we spotted in
+school; you are simply talking hot air, both of you."
+
+"_What_ does he say?" asked Hugh, who had come up by this time.
+
+"I wish to goodness you boys would speak plain English," Mollie said
+impatiently. "I don't want to spend all my time explaining you to
+the others."
+
+"Irry yourry tawrry lierry tharry weerry wirry tawrry lierry thirry,
+arry therry yourry woerry urrystarry wurry wurry tharry weerry
+sayrry," said Grizzel, rather angrily and very rapidly.
+
+"_What_ does she say?" asked both boys at once.
+
+"It's only our private language," said Prudence; "she says that if
+you talk that way we'll talk our way, and then you won't understand
+us. _That_ wouldn't do any good. I think we'd better have a Circle.
+Give me your hand, Mollie, and you take Hugh's. And Hugh Dick's, and
+Dick Grizzel's, and Grizzel Young Outram's, and Young Outram my
+other hand. Now all stand quite still and shut your eyes; listen to
+the waves, and try and think of three nice things about the people
+next you."
+
+The six children stood in a circle, silent and still, as Prudence
+had ordered, their eyes tightly closed. They felt the hot beams of
+the sun pouring over them, and the cool salt wind blew on their
+faces and through their hair; their toes curled and wriggled in the
+warm, wet sand, and in their ears was the plash-plash of the little
+waves beating backwards and forwards on the beach. It was very
+pleasant. It seemed quite easy to think of those three nice things.
+And presently each child felt a warm and friendly glow steal up its
+left arm, through its heart, down its right arm--and so on to its
+neighbour. When this pleasing and cheerful sensation had gone round
+the Circle three times, Prudence said: "Now, open your eyes and let
+go."
+
+They stood there smiling at each other, and feeling almost ready to
+burst with goodness and loving kindness towards all the world.
+
+"Now we'll understand each other," said Prue. "Words don't matter
+much if you understand people. Now what shall we do?"
+
+"Don't let's stand about any more," said Mollie; "the time does go
+so quickly, and there are lovely things to do. What would you like
+to do, Young Outram?"
+
+"Call me Jerry all the time," he answered first. "I want to forget
+about school while I can--there are a good many of us at school," he
+explained to Prudence, "and we are called Old Outram, and Outram
+Two, and Young Outram; and there are three Outram Kids at the prep,
+and another kid at home."
+
+"_All_ boys!" exclaimed Prudence.
+
+Jerry nodded. There had been nine Outram boys before the war! "Let's
+go out on the raft again--please," he added, with a wink at Grizzel,
+who smiled back. "You come too; we could easily push you along."
+
+"We'll have to change into our bathing things first," said Prudence;
+"the raft looks a little wet. We won't be long."
+
+The girls ran up into the sandhills to change, but before Prue
+disappeared she returned to the boys with a basket made of rushes in
+her hand, which she had begged from Bridget.
+
+"Here are some buns and grapes," she said a little shyly, "I thought
+you might be feeling hungry, and it is a long time yet till tea-
+time."
+
+Jerry decided on the spot that if he ever _did_ go in for the
+peculiar entertainment of falling in love, he would choose a shy
+girl with brown curls who did not talk slang and went about
+distributing buns to hungry boys. "Her for mine," he expressed it to
+himself.
+
+The girls were soon back, all in navy-blue bathing-suits, knickers
+below, and a belted tunic reaching to their knees above--too much
+clothed for Mollie's taste; she liked to be skimpy when she went
+swimming. But no one grumbles after they have been in a Circle--at
+least, not for the next twenty-four hours--so Mollie endured her
+substantial garments philosophically and soon forgot all about them.
+
+The girls waded out to the raft, which the boys had launched. They
+climbed on board and were soon in fairly deep water. Mollie and
+Prudence slipped off and left lazy Grizzel alone on deck, sitting
+cross-legged like a little tailor, one arm flung round the mast. The
+raft rocked gently up and down on the calm sea, while the children
+swam, ducked, and played about in the clear, sun-warmed water like a
+school of young porpoises. As Grizzel sat idly watching the rest,
+her eyes fell upon an object which floated at a little distance from
+the raft. It was a bottle--a common beer-bottle--its cork rammed
+well in and sealed with red wax.
+
+"What's that?" she called to Hugh, pointing to the bottle as it
+danced about, twirling round and round, tossing from side to side in
+the wide ripples sent out by the children and the drifting raft.
+
+They all made for it. "It's a message from the deep," cried Jerry;
+"probably from a ship-wrecked sailor."
+
+Hugh, being the nearest, caught it by its red neck, and the whole
+party collected on and about the raft to see what would happen next.
+But Hugh refused to break the bottle until they went ashore again.
+
+"The sea might get in and spoil the paper, and the broken glass
+would get on deck and cut us; we'll pull her in now and read the
+message on the beach," he decided.
+
+They got under way and, practice making perfect, were soon high and
+dry on the beach, and the _Nancy Lee_ dragged up and comfortably
+moored. The children seated themselves in a ring, and Hugh
+cautiously knocked off the neck of the bottle with a stone. He drew
+out a paper, which had been carefully rolled round a thin bamboo
+stick and tied with a red ribbon. There was no date on the paper,
+nor was there any sign to show where the bottle had been thrown in,
+but written in large, clear round-hand was the following message:
+
+  IF THE FINDER OF THIS BOTTLE
+  WILL SEARCH THE CAVE UNDER
+  _THE DUKE'S NOSE_ HE WILL FIND
+  SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.
+
+"Hidden treasure," said three boys all at once. "Where is The Duke's
+Nose?" asked Dick.
+
+"Never heard of it," answered Hugh, looking hard at Jerry, whose
+nose was distinctly aquiline and promised to be more so in the
+future. "You aren't a duke by any chance, I suppose?" he asked.
+
+"No, old sport, I'm not," Jerry answered, with a grin, "and if I
+were, the only treasure you would find in the cave under my nose
+would be some jolly sharp teeth, and they wouldn't be at all to your
+advantage either."
+
+"It's probably among those rocks over there," Mollie suggested; "I
+expect if we went there and walked round we would see something that
+looked like a duke's nose."
+
+"But there aren't any big enough to have a cave under them," said
+Prudence; "they are all quite little rocks."
+
+"It will be a bit of the cliff, most likely," said Dick, "in fact it
+is almost bound to be if there is a cave."
+
+The others agreed that this was probable. "What do you think the
+hidden treasure will be?" asked Grizzel. "A sack of diamonds and
+rubies?"
+
+"I hope not," said Jerry, "for, if it is anything of that sort, we
+will have to give it up. If we were caught trying to sell diamonds
+we'd be copped at once, and the bobbies would think the bottle story
+was all made up. I expect we'd all be put in jail, and it would be
+jolly awkward for Dick and me when we got back to school. I think I
+see the Old Man's face when we explained that we couldn't come
+because we were in an Australian prison in the year 1879 for
+stealing diamonds. I don't think!"
+
+"Schoolmasters and mistresses are extraordinarily stupid sometimes,"
+said Mollie reflectively. "They are so hard to convince, even about
+quite simple things, if they don't want to be convinced. But I
+shouldn't care for diamonds myself. I'd like a swanky tennis-
+racket."
+
+"I'd like a revolver, latest pattern," said Jerry.
+
+"I should like a first-class camera," said Hugh.
+
+"I'd like a pure-bred bull-dog," said Dick.
+
+"I'd like a nice little model sewing-machine," said Prue.
+
+"I'd like six pairs of stilts," said Grizzel, "and then we could all
+walk home on them."
+
+Everyone looked a little ashamed; Grizzel was the only one who had
+thought of the five others. A murmur went round that of course they
+had _meant_ six of everything. Then Mollie began to laugh: "How
+funny we will look if we each get all the things," she giggled. "We
+will walk home on the stilts, with a revolver and a sewing-machine
+tied on to each stilt, and a tennis-racket and a camera on our
+backs, and six bull-dogs trotting after us."
+
+This flight of fancy made everyone laugh consumedly: "We must go
+home now, anyway," Prudence said, as she dried a tear, "because it
+is getting on for tea-time and we have got to get dressed. Perhaps
+there will be time to go to the rocks after tea and just _look_ for
+a nose, and if we find it we'll take some spades in the morning and
+dig."
+
+The Campbell's seaside cottage stood behind the sandhills. It had
+been built by a retired sea-captain, who had planned it to look as
+like a ship inside as a house could be made to look. The walls were
+panelled in wood, painted bird's-egg blue, and decorated with
+pictures of ships. The windows were round like portholes; the table
+stood across one end of the room and was screwed to the floor, as
+were also the benches on either side. In the children's rooms were
+bunks, in rows one above the other, and the washing-stands were
+fixtures. It was altogether very charming and romantic.
+
+Tea was of the kind called high, and the hungry children disposed of
+cold ham, an extraordinary number of boiled eggs, several loaves of
+smoking hot new bread, and at least a pound of butter and two or
+three pounds of jam.
+
+"May we go for a walk to the rocks?" asked Prudence, when tea was
+over. "We will go very quietly along the beach and not get wet, and
+be home before dark."
+
+Papa said he would walk that way a little later on and meet them; so
+Mamma gave permission, and soon a party of six were wandering by the
+shore towards the rocks, carrying their boots and stockings slung
+round their necks. It did not take them long to cover the two miles
+which lay between their beach and the rocks. Mollie found it hard to
+pass by all the lovely shells with which the beach was strewn, but
+the rest were impatient. The sun was dropping down the sky and they
+had not too much time for their search.
+
+It did not promise to be a very successful search, for nowhere was
+there anything even remotely like a duke's nose to be seen--nor
+indeed any sort of nose. The rocks were low and for the most part
+jagged, with pools of water in the hollows between them for unwary
+or careless people to slip into. Many of them were covered with
+periwinkles, which Grizzel could not resist gathering. She filled
+her boots with them.
+
+"Papa likes them," she said, when Prudence and Mollie remonstrated
+with her for lingering; "he says they taste like a sea-breeze, and
+if we aren't going to take back a duke's nose I may as well take a
+periwinkle's nose; it will be better than nothing."
+
+The cliffs were high and precipitous, but they were no particular
+shape, being, as Hugh said, merely the edge of Australia. The
+children scrambled along till they reached the turn of the coast-
+line, beyond which were more rocks and cliffs, much the same as
+those about them.
+
+"Perhaps it isn't here at all," Prudence said, as they seated
+themselves in a row on the edge of a big boulder; "the message
+didn't say it was. It might be anywhere. Perhaps that bottle came
+hundreds of miles, and the Duke's Nose is at the South Pole."
+
+"More likely Kangaroo Island or Yorke's Peninsula," Hugh said. "We
+might sail the raft across--it's only about fifty miles to the
+Peninsula."
+
+"How'd you get her to go?" asked Jerry. "We couldn't swim fifty
+miles; half a mile is my limit at a stretch; Dick can do three-
+quarters."
+
+"We'd have to use the sail and tack a bit, and we'd have the oars."
+
+"What about food?" asked Prudence.
+
+"We'd sling it in a can on the mast. Water's the trouble; we'd have
+to distil sea-water, and that takes coal and might be a bit
+difficult; there isn't a place for coal on board yet."
+
+Mollie remembered the attar of roses and decided not to embark upon
+that voyage. "We would be pretty thirsty before there was enough
+water distilled for us all to drink," she thought to herself.
+
+"Well, we'll have to be getting home now," said Prudence, with a
+sigh. "It will be dark before so very long."
+
+A somewhat silent and subdued party set out on the homeward
+scramble, the boys in front, Mollie and Prue together, and Grizzel
+in the rear, being hampered by her bootfuls of periwinkles, which
+would keep falling out. She stopped at last, and, sitting down, she
+laced her boots tightly up and tied the tops round with the lace
+ends. When she looked up from this task she stopped again to admire
+the gorgeous sunset. The whole sky was ablaze, and the sea had
+changed from blue to crimson and gold; the wet beach was gleaming
+like an opal, pale-rose and lavender, with fiery amber lights
+shimmering on the rippled sand. The brilliant glow of the western
+sky was reflected in the east, and the cliffs stood out sharply
+against the light, themselves flushed with pink. Grizzel's keen
+young gaze ran along the outline, black where it cut the sky.
+
+"There's nothing there," she said to herself, "only that flagstaff
+hut, and it's as square as square."
+
+As she watched, a door opened in the side of the hut and a man came
+out, swinging a billy-can in his hand. Suddenly Grizzel caught her
+breath. Where had she heard someone say that that hut was a tiny
+refreshment-bar, where a man could go in and get boiling water for
+his tea--that everlasting tea which the Australian drinks at any and
+every hour of the day? It was Papa, and he had said they called the
+hut 'The Nose'--short, Grizzel felt sure, for The Duke's Nose. Her
+eyes ran quickly down the cliff underneath--yes, she could see the
+cave quite plainly when she looked hard, though to the casual glance
+it looked like a deep crevice in the cliff.
+
+She looked after the others. They had scrambled on ahead while she
+was tying up her periwinkles, and were now too far away to hear
+anything but a shout. She put her two hands up to her mouth and gave
+the long shrill "Cooo-eeeee!" of the Australian-born child, which
+caused five heads to be turned in her direction instantaneously.
+Prudence started running back, fearing that her sister had fallen
+and hurt herself. Grizzel's gesticulations made things no plainer to
+the others--when she pointed to the hut they thought she meant them
+to get help, so that Hugh and Dick set off towards the cliff, while
+Jerry came on with Mollie and Prudence in case there should be a
+broken limb.
+
+Even when they got within hailing distance they did not understand,
+for what between keeping a foothold on the slippery rocks, hanging
+on to her periwinkles, and her excitement over her discovery,
+Grizzel was getting breathless and incoherent, and all she did was
+to point a small forefinger at the hut and say: "Duke's-nose-you-
+know-duke's-nose-you-know-your-nose-dukes-know."
+
+"She is delirious with pain," said Mollie, "and she is mixing the
+Duke's Nose up with 'She sells sea-shells'."
+
+However, it was not very long before they reached her side, and she
+was able to explain the situation. A few more excited coo-ees
+brought the boys back, and the question became: What to do next? The
+sun was getting perilously near the horizon, and once it dropped
+behind the sea, darkness would fall rapidly and the rocks be really
+unsafe, especially as the tide was now coming in.
+
+"We must get up frightfully early in the morning," said Dick at
+last, "and come along before breakfast. Nobody is likely to find
+that treasure in the next ten hours or so."
+
+With many backward looks they resumed their homeward trek. It was
+hard luck to have to leave the treasure when, perhaps, they had
+almost found it, but Mamma's word was law, and if they broke their
+promise about getting home, or at least meeting Papa, it was quite
+possible that to-morrow would be spent by the girls in doing French
+verbs and making buttonholes.
+
+The children slept soundly all night in their funny little bunks.
+Early in the morning a small figure slipped into the boys' room and
+shook first one boy and then another by the shoulders. Dick and
+Jerry woke up after a few grunts; Hugh as usual was a sleepy-head.
+
+"Leave him to us," Dick said confidently, "_we'll_ get him up--
+you'll see."
+
+"Tell him to come by Gobbler's Hollow," ordered Grizzel; "you'll
+find us there. Don't stop to wash."
+
+When the boys were half-way across the sandhills, they saw a thin
+column of blue smoke rising from somewhere among the low scrubby
+trees, and a minute after a delicious smell greeted their unducal
+noses--a smell of wood-smoke and toast combined.
+
+"It's the girls making grub," Hugh explained to the other two;
+"they're great on grub." He might have added that he was great on it
+himself, so far as eating it was concerned. Certainly Dick and Jerry
+were very pleased to know that they had not to wait until half-past
+eight for breakfast, for the fresh sea air had given them ravenous
+appetites. They found the girls in Gobbler's Hollow--appropriately
+so named by Hugh--bending over a gipsy fire. The inevitable billy-
+can hung from a tripod, and the steam from it mingled with the smoke
+of the fire. Mollie was toasting bread, which Prudence buttered with
+a lavish hand, and Grizzel was shelling hard-boiled eggs.
+
+"I call this top-hole," Dick announced, as he squatted down on the
+sand and took his tin mug from Mollie, who had begged to be allowed
+to make the tea as she had seen Grizzel make it before. "It will
+buck us up no end and make us as sharp as needles."
+
+They were in a hurry to get on; so when breakfast was done they
+pushed the mugs and knives into the hollow of a bush, which Grizzel
+explained was their storeroom. Later in the day the girls would come
+back and tidy up; for the present the great thing was to get to the
+cave as quickly as possible. They had two clear hours before them in
+which to make their search.
+
+The tide was at its lowest, and there was a broad stretch of wet
+sand between the sandhills and the sea. Wide shallow pools of water
+had been left behind by the receding waves, while here and there lay
+long heavy drifts of seaweed, shining darkly in the early rays of
+the morning sunlight. The children splashed their way along, their
+eyes fixed on the flagstaff hut. As they drew nearer they left the
+sea and steered for the cave, the entrance to which was plain enough
+now that they knew where to look for it.
+
+"It's such a conspicuous sort of cave," Hugh said, "I don't see how
+anyone could miss finding treasure unless it is buried very deep."
+
+Caves have always a certain amount of mystery about them, but this
+one was undoubtedly as ordinary looking a cave as one could find. It
+did not burrow very far back into the cliff side, and what there was
+of it was open to the daylight and contained no lurking dark
+corners. The walls were rough and rocky but not high; the roof was,
+as Jerry said, nothing particular, and the floor was of shingle and
+rather wet, as if the sea, now so far away, had paid it a visit not
+so very long ago. But, as the rocks and stones before the entrance
+were dry, it was obviously not the tide which had washed the floor.
+
+"It must be a spring or something," Hugh said; "let's taste and see--" he
+stooped as he spoke and scooped up a handful of water, which
+he put to his lips.
+
+"Thought so; it's quite fresh and sweet--that's rather a find--jolly
+useful for picnics, it will save us carting water about--by jinks!"
+he exclaimed, looking round at the others with an expression of
+blank dismay; "do you suppose _that's_ what we were to find to our
+advantage?"
+
+They all stared hard at the shining wet stones, through which the
+trickle of water was now plainly discernable. Then they stared round
+the cave again. There did not seem to be a place where treasure
+_could_ be hidden. Moreover, there were traces of a not very remote
+picnic--the dead ashes of a gipsy fire, one or two crumpled-up balls
+of paper, some broken bottles!
+
+"That's it," said Jerry at last. "It was probably the people who had
+that picnic--those broken bottles are the same as the one we found.
+They played cock-shy with them, and then thought it would be a lark
+to chuck one into the sea. What a jolly old sell!"
+
+"We've had a nice morning anyhow," said Prudence, "and the spring
+certainly _will_ be an advantage when we've got used to it not being
+a sewing-machine and bull-dogs and things."
+
+"I somehow don't believe it is the spring," said Mollie
+thoughtfully, still staring about her. "There is something about the
+way that paper is written; it doesn't look like the writing of the
+sort of person who plays that kind of joke--and of course it would
+be meant for a joke. Let's all stand quite still in a circle back to
+back, and each stare hard all over the bit of cave that comes in
+front of us, and see if there isn't a sign of some sort."
+
+They agreed that there would be no harm in trying this plan, though
+the boys' hopes were small. Dick and Jerry were uneasily conscious
+that they were "the sort of person" who would have thought that
+bottled message an excellent joke--to play on someone else!
+
+So they stared. They even circled slowly round so that each part of
+the cave was examined with meticulous care by six pairs of eyes in
+turn. But it was all in vain; the cave only seemed to become more
+and more ordinary the longer they looked at it.
+
+"There's not a place where you could hide a thimble," Prue said
+sadly, "let alone a treasure."
+
+"What's that?" Grizzel called out suddenly, pointing to the broken
+bottles in the corner.
+
+After all there _had_ been a dark spot, and with the brightening
+daylight that dark spot had all at once lighted up, and there lay a
+bottle, the very twin of the one they had found in the sea, red
+sealing-wax and all. The boys made a dive for it, but Dick stopped
+abruptly and held back the others: "Grizzel saw it first, let her
+open it too," he said.
+
+Grizzel advanced, and picking up the bottle held it to the light--
+yes, there was a message plainly to be seen.
+
+"I think one of you had better break it open," she said; "I'd
+probably cut my fingers."
+
+Hugh solemnly knocked off its head and drew out the paper. It was
+written in the same round, clear handwriting:
+
+  IF THE PERSON WHO FINDS THIS
+  BOTTLE WILL ASK FOR MR. BROWN
+  AT THE DUKE'S NOSE, HE WILL
+  HEAR OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.
+
+"Why the dickens couldn't they have said that first shot?" Jerry
+exclaimed.
+
+"I expect Mr. Brown will tell us to go to the Duchess's Toes and
+hear of something to our _dis_-advantage," said Hugh sarcastically.
+
+"If we are going to look for Mr. Brown we will have to hurry," said
+Prudence, who had gone to the entrance of the cave and was
+scrutinizing the beach; "by the look of the shadows I should say it
+was a good bit after seven. In not much more than an hour we must be
+sitting down at breakfast tidy and brushed."
+
+They found when they came out that there was a footpath up to the
+Duke's Nose--a very steep and boulder-strewn path, but quite a
+possible one for them all; so they went for it manfully and
+womanfully and were soon at top. But alas! the door of the hut was
+closed and locked; no one answered their repeated knocks, and they
+came to the unwilling conclusion that the place was empty.
+
+"Blow!" said Dick at last. "Why couldn't the old treasure-hider put
+his old treasure in an easier place?"
+
+"If he had, someone else would have found it," Mollie remarked
+sensibly, "and anyhow it is a lark searching for it."
+
+At that moment a man's figure could be seen coming towards the hut;
+he was swinging a billy-can by the handle.
+
+"That's the man I saw last night," exclaimed Grizzel; "I expect he
+is Mr. Brown."
+
+The man was rather surprised to see six children congregated before
+his hut door at that hour of the morning. Prudence was pushed
+forward as spokeswoman. "Please, are you Mr. Brown?" she asked, in
+her most polite voice.
+
+"I am, miss. Anything I can do for you?"
+
+"We found this piece of paper," she said, showing the latest message
+to him, "and we brought it to you like it says."
+
+The man grinned broadly--he had a nice grin, the children thought--
+"You've found it, have you? Well, that beats me! That's darned
+clever of you. Our little Missie will be no end bucked to hear that
+bit o' news; she was mighty taken up with her messages, she was.
+You'll have to wait a bit, though. I can't leave this place before
+twelve noon. You be on the beach above where that big hump o'
+seaweed is at twelve-thirty to-day, an' you'll see--" the man broke
+off and grinned again.
+
+"What?" asked several excited people at once.
+
+"That's tellin'," said Mr. Brown; "just you wait an' you'll see
+somethin' to your advantage, same as it says here."
+
+It was terribly hard to have to leave the treasure at this thrilling
+stage, but there was nothing else to be done, especially as it was
+getting late, and they would have to hasten their steps as it was,
+if they were to reach home in time for a proper tidy-up before
+breakfast. Mamma was very particular about many things, but she was
+particularly particular about coming to table with clean hands and
+freshly brushed hair.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were at the trysting-place long before half-past twelve. Nobody
+had a watch, but the Australian children had a device of their own
+for telling the time.
+
+"You stand on one foot," Hugh explained, "and twirl round with your
+other big toe in the sand--like this. That makes a circle to fit
+your own shadow. Then you stand in the middle and see where the
+shadow hits the circle. And then you guess the time near enough for
+all practical purposes. It's quite simple."
+
+"Did you invent that sort of clock yourself?" Mollie asked
+deferentially.
+
+"There wasn't much to invent," Hugh replied modestly; "it's on the
+same principle as a sundial. I only applied my legs."
+
+"God invented Hugh's legs and the sun," Grizzel said; "Hugh only put
+in the squiggly toe."
+
+"But that's just it," Jerry argued; "like Newton and the apple. The
+simple things are there all the time, and no one sees them till the
+right person comes along. I think that's a jolly ingenious idea.
+You'd have to know exactly where due north was, of course, and you'd
+have to have the sun. That's the trouble in London; the sun just
+slops about the sky, and half the time you can't see him at all."
+
+The children now twirled round and round like dervishes, making
+shadow-clocks till there were hardly any shadows left, as the sun
+rose higher and higher in the heavens. It also became warmer and
+warmer; so they decided to sit in a row with their backs to the sea
+and their eyes firmly fixed upon the hut, determined not to miss the
+sight of the treasure for a single moment.
+
+"Let's play 'I went to market with a green umbrella'," Prue
+suggested, "and we can think of all the things the treasure might
+be." The green umbrella had been to market about twenty times when a
+voice behind them made them all start.
+
+"Well, now--to be sure!"
+
+And there was Mr. Brown, with nothing in his hands--no sack upon his
+back.
+
+"How _did_ you come, Mr. Brown?" Mollie asked. "We looked and
+looked."
+
+"Grand sentries you'd make--all lookin' one way," said Mr. Brown.
+"Suppose you look at the sea for a change."
+
+Six pairs of eyes turned to gaze at the sea--and six pairs of feet
+instantly began to run, for there, drawn up on the beach, was a
+boat!
+
+"How's that for a tidy craft?" asked Mr. Brown. "Is she pretty
+shaped? How do you like her paint? Look at her nice little oars.
+Eight, she holds--nice-sized party eight is, sort o' cosy an'
+cheerful."
+
+The children looked from the boat to Mr. Brown and back again.
+Nobody thought any more of stilts or sewing-machines, or even of
+bull-dogs; the only thing on earth worth having at that moment was
+the wonderful boat around which they were standing. Her outer dress
+was of bright, dark green, with a scarlet line round the rim; inside
+she was pure white. A little railing of delicate iron scroll-work
+ran round her stern, and across it curved a board, with the boat's
+name in scarlet and gold: _The Belle of Canada._
+
+"Do you mean--" Hugh began, but he was too overpowered to finish,
+because it was all very well to talk about cameras and things in the
+abstract, but that such a thing as a real, life-sized boat--and such
+a beautiful boat too--should fall into their hands in this casual
+way was too wildly improbable to be true.
+
+But it was true, nevertheless. That lovely little boat was really
+theirs!
+
+The way it happened was this, Mr. Brown explained: the year before--
+while the Campbells were in the hills--a little Canadian girl,
+visiting her Australian relations, had come with them to stay in the
+very cottage the Campbells were in now. She was very ill when she
+arrived. The doctors feared consumption, and said that open air all
+day long was the best medicine she could have. So the boat was
+bought--"and a fine price they paid for her too," Mr. Brown
+remarked--and the little girl was half her time on the sea, and got
+so sun-burnt and sturdy that before she left she was rowing the boat
+herself--"an' you'd never know she'd had a mite the matter with
+her," Mr. Brown said. When the time came for her to leave she took a
+fancy to give her boat to some other children, so that they might
+have as happy a summer with it as she had had. But it wasn't enough
+to give it in the usual way of giving--she made up the plan of the
+message in the bottle, which she left with Mr. Brown.
+
+"But I wasn't in no hurry," he said. "I kep' my eye on the cottage
+children. The last lot were a rampagin' set o' young ruffians,
+smashin' everything they set hands on. I soon saw that this chap was
+a different sort altogether, hammerin' an' tinkerin' away at his
+raft, and careful of her as if she was a lady--he's the sort for
+little Missie an' me, I said to myself, so in the bottle went, only
+an hour or two before you found it."
+
+"And suppose no one had found it, or the other bottle?" Dick
+suggested.
+
+"Not much danger o' that, with six pair o' sharp eyes an'
+inquisitive headpieces around," Mr. Brown answered, with a laugh.
+"The only bit I wasn't sure about was the Duke's Nose, for not many
+knows it by that name; but little Missie would have it--said it was
+more romantic like, though what's romantic about a duke's nose it
+beats me to see--just like any other nose, I don't mind bettin'."
+
+"Hugh says Jerry's nose is like a duke's," Grizzel said, so that all
+eyes were immediately fixed upon poor Jerry's nose.
+
+"Jolly romantic, especially when I have a cold in the head!" he
+exclaimed.
+
+"Well now, jump in, the lot o' you, an' I'll row you along to your
+Pa," said Mr. Brown.
+
+"Do you know Papa?" asked Grizzel, whose round blue eyes had never
+left Mr. Brown's face since he began his story.
+
+"Yes, I know your Pa. There ain't many round here that don't. Now
+then----"
+
+As Mr. Brown talked he had pushed the boat out, with some help from
+the boys, and had lifted the girls in. Now he took the oars, and,
+with a few powerful strokes, he sent the boat skimming over the
+sparkling blue sea.
+
+All the children could row, more or less, but Mr. Brown gave them
+some useful hints. "An' you mustn't ever go far out to sea by
+yourselves," he said, "nor yet too near the rocks except it be a
+calm day like to-day. Remember that a good sailor won't ever run his
+ship into danger unless he can't help himself, no more than he would
+his wife. If you want to go a regular excursion to the Port or such,
+you can always get one of us to go with you, unless, of course, your
+Pa can take you. But you'll get plenty of fun, an' learn a lot too,
+playin' round here--you'll learn the feel o' the sea, which is
+something quite different from rowin' on a river. An' don't you be
+givin' the raft the go-by," he added, addressing himself to Hugh;
+"there's a lot goes to a raft an' you never know when your knowledge
+o' handlin' one may come in useful. That's a tidy one you've made,
+but it wants a bit o' tar. I'll bring some along one o' these days
+an' show you how to use it--there's your Pa wavin' to you."
+
+An excited party of children landed on the beach and told their
+story to Papa, whose consent had to be won before the lovely boat
+was really theirs. He was as delighted as they were themselves, and
+an expedition was planned for that very evening, to include Mamma
+and her guitar.
+
+"If you will give me the little girl's address I will write and tell
+her all about how we found the bottle," Prudence said to Mr. Brown,
+"and we will all write and say 'Thank you' for her _beautiful_
+idea."
+
+"She's back in Canada now," Mr. Brown answered. "She'd be mighty
+pleased to hear from you."
+
+It was difficult to sit down soberly to boiled mutton and batter
+pudding after these exhilarating adventures, but it had to be done,
+and after dinner the girls had to "sit quietly with their needles"
+for an hour; but at last tea-time came, and evening followed, and
+the whole family except Baby embarked upon the first voyage in _The
+Belle of Canada_. It was delightful to float about on the moonlit
+water and listen to Mamma's lovely voice. She sang a Canadian boat-
+song, in honour of the little hostess in far-away Canada:
+
+  "From the lone sheiling of the misty island
+  Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas--
+  Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
+  And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.
+
+ "Fair these broad meads--these hoary woods are grand;
+  But we are exiles from our father's land."
+
+Silence fell upon them all after that. Mamma's white hands dropped
+from the guitar and slipped under Papa's arm; Prudence thought in
+her dreamy way of the little Canadian; Mollie remembered the
+American soldiers and their song; Hugh's mind was full to the brim
+of boats and rafts and ships.
+
+"Look here!" cried Jerry suddenly; "we're a good slice of our jolly
+old Empire to-night--Great Britain, Australia, India, sailing in a
+Canadian boat--there's another song we ought to sing----" he jumped
+to his feet as he spoke, making the boat rock in the silvery water.
+"Come on!" he sang:
+
+  "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Oh, Jerry! _Why_ did you go and do that?" Mollie called out, as she
+sat up and rubbed her eyes. "It isn't nearly time to wake up yet!"
+
+"Indeed it is, you little lazy bones," Aunt Mary said, with a laugh.
+"Goodness, child! You are beginning to look quite rosy and sunburnt!
+Spraining your ankle seems to suit you. I think I'll sprain mine and
+see if I can raise a complexion like that. It's as good as a visit
+to the seaside."
+
+"Ah!" said Mollie.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+The Gold-diggers or The Miracle
+
+
+"DEAR MOLL,
+
+"This is exactly what happened yesterday. Young Outram says that it
+is very important for us to keep notes, in case the Thingummy
+Society should want to know all about it one of these days.
+
+"To begin with I was late for breakfast, so I grabbed your letter
+and stuck it in my pocket, along with a roll, and bolted. Everything
+as usual till about 2.30. Bibs was trying to knock some maths into
+our heads, which I call pretty hard luck on a chap who has crawled
+to the top of his left wing while shots were dropping round like
+hail. He looked fairly fed-up. It was tremendously hot and my head
+ached, and Young Outram had a rag-nail on his first finger which he
+said was causing him frightful agony, when I suddenly remembered the
+roll and found your letter. So we ate the roll and read it, I mean
+we read your letter and ate it--anyway, we were looking at that
+photograph and thinking that the boy looked a pretty decent sort,
+and wishing we were him instead of ourselves when suddenly he
+appeared! He really did, I'm not making this up. At the window just
+where the parrot was yesterday. And the funny thing is that we don't
+usually sit at that desk for maths, but the other room was having
+something done to it, so we did yesterday. The chap stared at us,
+and Y. O. said, 'Hullo!' and he said, 'Hullo!' And Y. O. said, 'Who
+are you?' And he said, 'I'm a Time-traveller!' And we said, 'What
+the dickens is a Time-traveller?' And he said 'Like to come and
+see?' And we said, 'You bet your hat!' And he said, 'Hold my fist
+and shut your eyes!' So we did, and next thing we knew we were
+floating on our backs in the sea as calm and cool as cucumbers, and
+the raft was bobbing about, and you know the rest. At least, we
+suppose you do. That's what we want to know. Hugh told us the Time-
+traveller yarn. It sounds a fairly tall tale, but we've heard taller
+from chaps who were at the front. The point is, how can we go back?
+London is a rotten hole in this weather.
+
+"Your affec. bro.,
+
+"DICK."
+
+
+Mollie read this letter as she ate her morning oatcake. So her spell
+had worked! The question was, would it work again? For obviously she
+could not continue sending away photographs without causing remarks
+to be made and questions asked. She did not see how she could do
+anything more herself; they must just trust to luck, at any rate
+till she saw Prudence again.
+
+It was rather odd, when she came to think of it, that she had not
+questioned Dick yesterday about how they had got over. But the fact
+was that, after the first surprise of seeing them, she had
+forgotten. "I forget about Now and only remember Then," she said to
+herself. "There is so much to do the time simply flies and comes to
+an end far too soon."
+
+When she arrived downstairs that morning she found that her sofa had
+been carried out of doors. It was a lovely day. Here in the country
+the leaves still retained their early freshness, and from where she
+lay she could see the downs, mistily green against the pale morning
+blue of the sky. The rose-garden, with its smoothly mown grass
+paths, its pergolas and arches, its standards and dwarfs, was coming
+into bloom so fast under the June sunshine that Mollie thought she
+might almost see a bud swell into a full-blown rose if she watched
+steadily enough. Caroline Testout had already dropped some of her
+pink blossoms, which lay scattered about the path in rosy patches,
+reminding Mollie of Grizzel and her shells. She smiled to herself
+and then sighed, as her eyes wandered from the rose-garden to the
+long red brick wall beyond, where the sweet cherries grew. The fruit
+was turning scarlet under an orderly net, which had been put up to
+protect it from the greedy little birds. Everything was so tidy, she
+thought. No one would dare to pull off those rose petals for scent-
+making purposes, nor to gather those cherries merely to play at
+making jam with. Chauncery was lovely and spacious compared to the
+house in North Kensington, and the well-kept gardens were a pleasure
+to look at, but----
+
+"I don't think England is big enough to hold children," she said to
+Aunt Mary, who sat near, reading the _Aeroplane_, with some
+neglected needlework lying in her lap.
+
+Aunt Mary looked up with a surprised expression: "I am sorry you are
+feeling so crowded up," she said. "Would you like me to move a
+little farther away?"
+
+"No, thank you," Mollie answered, with a laugh, "I have room to
+breathe even with you there. What I mean is----" she paused for a
+moment, wrinkling her brow, and then went on: "London isn't like
+this; it's full of poky holes. Ours is bad enough, but from the
+train you can see much, much worse places than ours. Sometimes I
+wonder how people can live in them, and yet Mother says they are not
+the worst. There is simply no room for children to play, so they
+play on the streets and sometimes get killed. The Girl Guides are
+going to help, but it takes a long time "--Mollie shook her head
+thoughtfully--"and there is so little time too; at home I never
+have any time to do anything except work or Guiding. I have no time
+to think in, except after I am in bed, and I go to sleep so horribly
+soon." She shook her head again and sighed deeply.
+
+"Well, that's one good thing to be thankful for," Aunt Mary said
+cheerfully, dropping her paper and taking up her sewing, "and there
+are the holidays for thinking in. I wouldn't think too much, if I
+were you. You'll get plenty of that when you are old," and Aunt Mary
+sighed too, as if she did not find her own thoughts very gay affairs
+always.
+
+"But I want to think of things now that will be useful long before I
+am old," Mollie persisted. "There is such a _tremendous_ lot of
+things to be done, Aunt Mary. And things have to be thoughts long
+before they are things. I expect the person who invented aeroplanes
+thought about them for ages and ages before he began to make one."
+
+"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Aunt Mary agreed, "but you
+are wandering from your subject, which was the smallness of Great
+Britain."
+
+"No, I'm not--at least not exactly, I want to make Great Britain
+greater, and I can't think of a way. I should like to have plenty of
+room and plenty of time."
+
+"That won't be an easy problem for you to solve, my lambkin," Aunt
+Mary said. "As a matter of fact there is room enough, in the
+country, but people prefer to live in towns. You will have to hire a
+pied piper and pipe all the babies into the fields."
+
+Mollie shook her head, her eyes resting again upon the distant
+downs. "I don't know," she said seriously, "but something will have
+to be done some day, Aunt Mary, besides play-centres. They are good,
+but they aren't enough. Too many children die. Mother goes to a
+children's home once a week, and she took me once. You should just
+see those babies. And they could be such dear little things too.
+Why--" Mollie hesitated for a moment and then went on, "Why don't
+more people go to live in Australia and Canada? The maps are full of
+empty spaces."
+
+"Ah, Mollie my dear, that's not so easy as it sounds," Aunt Mary
+said, folding up her work and rising to her feet. "There are all
+sorts of complications when it comes to shifting camp from the Old
+World to the New. But perhaps--perhaps if everyone in this old
+country could be persuaded to think of the children first--! In the
+meantime I must go and get lunch for my particular child."
+
+Probably Aunt Mary's mind was running on those sick babies of the
+poor as she played to Mollie that afternoon, for her fingers
+wandered off into the tune of a song she had not heard sung since
+her childhood:
+
+  "'T is the song, the sigh of the weary:
+  Hard times, hard times, come again no more!
+  Many days you have lingered around our cottage door--
+  Oh, hard times, come again no more!"
+
+Mollie lay listening, the unopened album in her lap. She was drowsy
+after her morning in the garden, and thought she would rest her eyes
+by closing them for five minutes. "A little darkness will do them
+good after all that sunshine," she murmured to herself.
+
+It was very pleasant lying in the quiet room, on that broad sofa,
+listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the
+piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong
+side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again
+through the glass. A delicious scent came from somewhere--perhaps
+from the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window.
+Mollie's lazy eyelids fell over her eyes--"Just five minutes--"
+
+"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes.
+Twenty--"
+
+"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a
+little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the
+best thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I
+could fill Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the
+garden." She felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull
+two ways at once, for there were many things she would fain have
+done had her duty to her mother not stood in the way.
+
+Someone else came and looked at Mollie.
+
+"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can
+manage. It is getting very easy."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still,
+enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so
+different from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned,
+stretched herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and
+opened the lazy eyes.
+
+"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me
+asleep. I wonder where she is."
+
+She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a
+place quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back
+stretched an orange-grove--there was no mistaking it, for the trees,
+planted evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe
+and unripe, while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still
+grew in clusters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume
+out with the warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the
+grove by a narrow, roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide,
+undulating plain, its surface covered somewhat scantily with coarse
+grass and occasional clumps of bracken. There were gum trees, large
+and small, their thin blue-green leaves hanging limply from the grey
+boughs, and throwing but little shade on the ground beneath. Some
+distance away a creek wound between wide banks of shingly sand and
+low boulders. At the nearer end a gum tree had fallen across the
+stream and had been left to form a crossing. Mollie thought it did
+not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a dark night.
+
+It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the
+orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore
+in that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and,
+turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land
+in front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily
+recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and
+pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along
+behind, and carried between them a large round article which might
+be a tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek,
+and, as Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the
+fallen log.
+
+"Dick and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any
+help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy,
+which, however, she quickly got rid of--jealousy not being part of a
+Girl Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way
+she had seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a
+creditably sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the
+children to a standstill, and they waited for her to join them.
+
+"What are you going to do?" she asked.
+
+"We are going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started
+again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and
+we sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so
+that all the dirt runs out and the gold stays in--at least, it would
+if there were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but
+never got any gold at all. We found some pretty crystals, though."
+
+"I found a purple one just like an amethyst," Grizzel joined in;
+"but Mr. Fraser said it wasn't. Then I found a white one like a
+diamond, and a green one. I polished them with all my might, but I
+lost them except the green one. I hid it in a tree like the person
+who shot an arrow into the air, only my tree is a gum instead of an
+oak. I expect it is there still unbroke if it hasn't been stolen by
+a magpie or a blackie."
+
+When they reached the creek the boys laid down their tools, and Hugh
+studied the lie of the land with an intent expression.
+
+"We'll begin about here," he decided presently. "Last year we dug
+higher up, but I shouldn't wonder if gold silts downwards and
+collects in a hollow. This is about the hollowest place I have found
+yet. The soil in these old alluvial beds is often auriferous," he
+went on; "Mr. Fraser says this was once quite a respectable river,
+but years of dry seasons shrank it up. It will never go quite dry,
+because there is a good spring up there, and that is why he chose
+this place for his oranges. Irrigation is absolutely necessary for
+an orange-grove."
+
+"Are we allowed to eat the oranges?" Dick asked anxiously, as a
+breath of scented wind blew across him.
+
+"Oh yes--as many as we like. But we must dig first," Hugh replied
+firmly, lifting his spade as he spoke and planting it upright in the
+sandy soil. "First we must peg out our claims. There's a good deal
+of luck about gold-digging, of course, but you'd better look round
+and choose your own spot."
+
+After some consideration the children decided to throw in their lot
+with Hugh, who was the only one among them who knew what gold looked
+like in its raw state.
+
+"You can keep half and the rest of us will go shares in the other
+half," Dick suggested, quite forgetting in his interest that Time-
+travellers cannot carry profits with them on their travels. The plan
+sounded fair, however, so they agreed to it.
+
+"It is possible that we may not find _gold_," Hugh said, as he
+marked out a square within which to begin operations; "but we are
+pretty sure to find something. Australian soil is extraordinarily
+rich in products. I should think it must be about the richest soil
+in the world."
+
+"I hope it won't be ants," Prudence said nervously. "I do hate
+ants."
+
+"Aunts!" exclaimed Jerry, not understanding Prue's Scottish-
+Australian pronunciation. "Why the dickens should we find aunts in a
+river-bed? Do they all drown themselves out here? Aunts can be jolly
+nice too--or jolly nasty, according to circs."
+
+"They're _always_ nasty here," Grizzel said emphatically, "I never
+met a nice ant in my life. They bite like red-hot nippers."
+
+"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague
+memories of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and Aunt Chloe floating in the back
+of his brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that
+aborigines were as fierce as all that."
+
+"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called
+the native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry-
+jines when she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great
+many in India, and they eat his books."
+
+Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India,"
+he said, "but I never heard of them eating books."
+
+"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested
+Mollie.
+
+"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books
+from one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."
+
+"Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said
+unbelievingly.
+
+"But they aren't birds at all, they're _ants_," cried Grizzel.
+
+A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and
+wider, now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is
+talking about aunts--your Aunt Maria--and the other is talking about
+ants--the beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You _are_ a
+pair of muffs! He, he, he!"
+
+"'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh--
+_Jerry_--"
+
+It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding.
+"Next time I see Aunt Mary--bites like red-hot nippers--oh dear!"
+
+"Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord
+neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like
+that you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get
+started."
+
+Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes
+were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and
+the girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with
+the utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no
+success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded
+their toil.
+
+"It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge
+of the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable.
+We know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at
+breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares
+had struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what
+to do with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old
+maid, so naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who
+is going to be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these
+pebbles are quite valuable," he continued, running a handful of
+shingle through his fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and
+topazes in some river beds. I have never found one myself, but I've
+picked up some pretty good crystals."
+
+"I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a
+tree near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I
+shall dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."
+
+She got up as she spoke and went off towards a particularly gaunt-
+looking tree. Its trunk had split open, showing a hollow large
+enough to hold several people; for some distance around its roots
+protruded through the ground like old bones. Grizzel disappeared
+into the hollow trunk, whence she presently emerged with an air of
+triumph. "I've got it safe and sound. Now I'm going to get an
+orange."
+
+Jerry eyed the orange-grove lovingly. Digging is thirsty work.
+
+"Let's all go," said Hugh. "Orange juice is one of the most
+restorative things in the world; if we eat enough we will be ready
+to make a fresh start in half an hour or so. Very likely we shall
+have better luck next time."
+
+It was hot, and the change from the glaring sunshine into the cool
+dampness of the orange-grove was very pleasant. The beautiful fruit
+hung invitingly from the branches with a colour and fragrance
+unknown to London shops. There were many varieties, and the
+Australian children wandered critically from tree to tree.
+
+"I'm not sure whether I like navels or bloods best," Hugh remarked,
+"but perhaps on the whole, for pure refreshment, navels."
+
+He stopped, as he spoke, before a tree on which grew oranges larger
+than the London children had ever seen in their lives--immense,
+smooth, opulent-looking globes of rich golden yellow. For a time
+silence reigned, while six people covered themselves with juice,
+"Like the ointment that ran down Aaron's beard," Grizzel said, and
+the ground in the neighbourhood assumed an auriferous hue that made
+the inventor sigh.
+
+"I wish we could find a place where nuggets lay about like that," he
+said rather pensively; "it would be awfully jolly."
+
+"It would be," agreed the others, "most awfully jolly."
+
+"I think I'd as soon have oranges as gold," Grizzel said
+reflectively, looking down at the peel-strewn earth. "Think how nice
+it would be if you were in the very middle of a scorching desert,
+and dying of thirst like the men in _Five Weeks in a Balloon_, to
+find a lovely orange tree covered with juicy oranges. It would be
+nicer than finding gold."
+
+"You do talk silly slithers," Hugh said derisively. "Who ever found
+a beautiful orange tree in the middle of a desert? You _might_ find
+gold and bribe an Arab to give you water."
+
+"You _might_ find an orange tree in an oasis," Grizzel said huffily.
+"I am going to bathe my feet in the creek. Go and look for your old
+gold. You won't find it."
+
+"All right, Carroty-cross-patch. You won't get any if we do," Hugh
+replied politely.
+
+"Don't want it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked
+off, her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving
+over her head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No
+one remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was
+like brethren dwelling together in unity--a good and pleasant thing.
+They were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous
+modes of address.
+
+"We'd better go back and dig in a new place," said Hugh; "the light
+will begin to fade before very long."
+
+They gathered up their orange peel and buried it tidily, and then
+stepped out of the cool grove into the hot sunshine with some
+reluctance. But gold-digging is not mere play, as Hugh reminded
+them. If you want to find a large nugget you begin by looking for
+small ones, and the search undoubtedly entails some hard work.
+
+The new diggings were no more productive than the old. The boys
+worked industriously, digging widely rather than deeply. It was
+decidedly monotonous work, and Dick began to think that for pure
+excitement gold-digging showed up poorly beside football. Their
+backs ached, their hands were blistered, and the shingly pebbles got
+into their shoes. They were hot and thirsty, and into the minds of
+four of them crept a suspicion that Grizzel had chosen the better
+way of spending the time. They could see her sitting on a boulder,
+her feet in the water and her hands occupied with her crystal, which
+she was rubbing in a leisurely way on a stone, as one sharpens
+slate-pencils. The afternoon wore on; the sun seemed to gain in
+speed as he slanted down the sky, and tree shadows lay about the
+ground like long thin skeletons. A herd of cows, on their way to the
+milking-shed, trailed lazily past the weary diggers, reminding them
+of tea-time with its refreshing drinks and soothing cream and
+butter.
+
+Jerry stood up, dropping his spade and stretching his arms above his
+head.
+
+"I'm tired," he announced. "Let's hang our spades on a gummy tree
+and sit beside Carrots for a bit. I'd like to dabble my little feet
+too, before walking home."
+
+Hugh assented somewhat reluctantly; he would have preferred to
+continue digging while daylight lasted. "We've done _something_," he
+said, as they took off their shoes and stockings; "we've found where
+gold isn't, and that's rather important."
+
+"I know lots of places where it isn't," said Dick, putting his hands
+in his pockets, "I could have told you that without digging for a
+whole afternoon, if I'd known it was important."
+
+"Of course I mean when it isn't where it might be," Hugh amended,
+taking no notice of Dick's gibe. "It's what Papa calls the process
+of elimination. You've got to do it with almost everything worth
+having really. You've only got to look at this river bed to see
+there's pretty sure to be something worth having there--in fact I
+know there is. It may not be gold, but it's something."
+
+"How do you know it?" Mollie asked curiously. "I don't see anything
+particular about the river bed. It doesn't look half so likely as
+the gold patch in the road beside your cherry garden."
+
+"I can't tell you how, but I do. Just you wait and see. To-morrow I
+think I'll try the old place again. I shall go on trying till I find
+something, either gold or precious stones. There might even be
+diamonds; there are in some river beds."
+
+"Look," said Grizzel, holding out her hand with the stone in it, "I
+have rubbed a bit off one side at last. If I rub long enough it will
+come bright all over."
+
+A small, roughly eight-sided crystal lay in the palm of her hand.
+Six sides were dull and colourless, the remaining two sides were
+clear and transparent.
+
+"I rubbed my bit off exactly opposite the bit that was clean
+already," she went on, "so that I could look through it at the sun."
+She turned the crystal over and held it up as she spoke. A dazzling
+flash of pale-green light darted out, as though an unearthly finger
+were pointing at the sun. It was gone in a moment, and the stone
+looked dull and rough as before.
+
+"What was that?" Grizzel asked, in a startled voice. "Is it going to
+go off like fireworks?"
+
+"Give it to me," said Hugh, taking it from Grizzel's unresisting
+fingers. He held it up as she had done, and again the pale-green
+light flashed out. He moved it slightly from side to side, and with
+his movements the green light took on the shining hues of a rainbow.
+
+"It's like a diamond," said Prudence in an awed voice.
+
+"It _is_ a diamond," cried Hugh. "I knew it! I knew it! I said so!
+Grizzel found it in the place we dug last year. Grizzel found it,
+but it was me that looked for it, because I knew! Where this one was
+there will be more. _We have found a diamond bed!_"
+
+"If Grizzel hadn't rubbed it so hard you would never have known,"
+Prudence reminded him. "She rubbed that bit for _weeks_ last year."
+
+Hugh turned the crystal over and over, examining it on every side.
+"Diamonds are terrifically hard," he explained more calmly. "It
+takes months to cut and polish a diamond properly. Grizzel's pretty
+good at sticking to a thing; I'll say that for her. I'm glad the
+first diamond was found by her."
+
+"Well--it will take me some time to polish it all over," Grizzel
+said, with a sigh. "If I did nothing else all day long but rub it on
+a stone it would be clean in about six months."
+
+"Who does this land belong to?" Jerry asked. "Is it your father's?"
+
+"Oh, no--it's Mr. Eraser's. For miles around the land is his. That's
+the man we are staying with."
+
+"Then the diamond is Mr. Fraser's, not yours or Grizzel's," Jerry
+pronounced.
+
+There was a short silence. "Mr. Fraser said I might have all the
+gold I found," Hugh said, in a doubtful tone.
+
+"I expect he guessed that you wouldn't find any," Jerry responded.
+"But a diamond like that is a different thing. If it really is a
+diamond it is probably pretty valuable--perhaps it is worth a
+hundred pounds. You can't walk off with a hundred pounds without
+telling."
+
+"Well, we'll show it to him. Of course we'll tell him we have found
+a diamond bed," Hugh answered.
+
+"It's my diamond," Grizzel declared. "I found it and I rubbed it and
+it slept under my pillow, and I hid it and I love it and it's mine.
+I don't care what anybody says."
+
+"Mr. Fraser will most likely give you lots of money for it," Mollie
+suggested soothingly, "and then you can go and buy something nicer
+than a diamond."
+
+"I don't want lots of money. I want my own dear little stone that I
+rubbed myself," Grizzel repeated, tears starting to her eyes. "Why
+should Mr. Fraser take my stone and chop it all up with horrible
+sharp grinding knives? It's mine. I found it."
+
+"You'll have to show it to him first," Hugh said decisively,
+"whether you found it or not. If you keep it you will be a thief,
+and perhaps you will be sent to prison."
+
+"Then I'd rather let it go back to its home in the river bed,"
+Grizzel cried passionately. As she spoke she snatched the crystal
+from Hugh's hand; there was a flash of green light--a splash--and it
+was gone.
+
+She turned and ran, sobbing and crying. Prudence followed, bent upon
+comforting her. Mollie looked scared, Jerry laughed, Hugh shrugged
+his shoulders:
+
+"Just like a girl!" he said. "It doesn't matter; we'll find more.
+But that was a good diamond; I'd have liked to show it to Mr.
+Fraser. We'd better collect our things and go home."
+
+Three of them turned away, but Dick lingered behind. His quick eyes,
+trained to watching the flight of balls of all sizes from footballs
+to golf-balls, had taken accurate note of the spot where that little
+splash had been. There were still circles widening round it. The
+creek looked shallow just there.
+
+"If I scooped up the sand carefully _now_, as likely as not I'd
+retrieve that stone," he said to himself. "Grizzel is a decent
+little kid; she'll be sorry by and by, and, besides, the old chap
+ought to have his diamond if it really is a diamond. Diamonds aren't
+so jolly easy to come by as Hugh seems to think. That white stone is
+almost in the middle of the circle--I'll make for that."
+
+"Don't wait for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a
+jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and
+preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then
+transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood
+the water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel
+for itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped
+over a large boulder on the higher ground some distance beyond the
+fallen tree.
+
+"I can crawl over that and drop off at the shallow part," he
+thought, "I'll have to look sharp or the circles will be gone."
+
+He rolled up his already short flannels and started. The tree was by
+no means steady--it rolled and shook under his weight; but, as the
+worst that could happen would be a good soaking, he did not worry
+overmuch, and soon slid off into the shallow stream. As he had
+predicted, the water there barely reached to his knees. He
+scrutinized the ever-widening circle, now faint and irregular, and,
+calculating the distance from its edge to its centre, he fixed his
+eyes intently upon the white stone and cautiously waded towards it,
+his movements in the water breaking up the last traces of the
+circle. When he reached the white stone he halted.
+
+"It was here, almost to a T, or my name is not Richard Gordon," he
+muttered, and, stooping carefully, he scooped up a double handful of
+shingly sand from the river bottom. He stood up, letting the water
+run away through his tightly closed fingers. As he bent his head to
+examine the pebbles left in his hand, a sunbeam darted over his
+shoulder--there was a flash of pale green.
+
+"Got it, by jinks!" he chuckled exultantly. "First go-off! Good for
+you, Richard, my boy--your eye is pretty well in and no mistake.
+Come out of that, my young diamond, and let's have a look at you--
+you'd do A1 for heliographing with."
+
+Dick soon scrambled to shore, and stood for a moment looking after
+the others, now far ahead. "I'll put him back in the hollow trunk
+where Grizzel hid him," he decided, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It
+might be rather a lark--"
+
+A sharp sprint brought him up with the other two boys, who were
+awaiting his arrival seated on the top of a slip-rail, Mollie having
+gone in search of Prudence and Grizzel.
+
+"What on earth have you been doing?" Hugh demanded. "Have you been
+swimming?"
+
+"I was only having a look round," Dick answered, with a wink at
+Jerry; "I thought I'd do a little prospecting on my own."
+
+"Why didn't you tell me, you beast?" Jerry asked, linking his arm
+into Dick's affectionately.
+
+Dick answered by a friendly punch on the head. "Who is Mr. Fraser?"
+he asked Hugh, settling himself in his place on the rail.
+
+"He is a man we know," Hugh replied rather vaguely. "He owns all
+this part and is as rich as a nabob, but he isn't married, so he
+lives up here all alone, with two or three Chinese servants in the
+house. He once lived in China. He's awfully fond of gardening, and
+pictures, and that sort of thing, like my mater. He's a merchant and
+he owns ships. He's a great friend of the pater's, and he comes in
+about once a week to hear the mater sing, and they yarn away about
+home and spout poetry. But he is quite a jolly sort of chap when you
+get him alone. His house is called Drink Between, which wouldn't be
+a bad name for a book if you wanted to write one."
+
+"Jolly good name for a pub, if you wanted to keep one," Jerry
+remarked. "I shouldn't wonder if he got it from some old coaching
+inn of the olden times--though, of course, we are in the olden times
+already, if it comes to that--fairly old, at any rate."
+
+"No, he got it from a place at home where Prince Charlie once had a
+drink. When the girls are here he gets in a couple of women to look
+after them. Other times he only has his heathen Chinee lot, and
+jolly good they are! That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy
+and bird's nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself."
+
+"Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of
+having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?"
+
+"Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our
+old woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce?
+Scrumptious!"
+
+The appearance of the girls interrupted these flights of masculine
+fancy. Grizzel still looked subdued, but the tears were dried, and
+she was listening politely to Mollie's tuneful advice to "Pack your
+troubles in your own kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile". Hugh shouted
+to them to hurry up or they would be late for tea, and soon the
+little party was under way again, as cheerful as if diamonds had
+never been heard of. They were now in sight of Drink Between; a
+square, solidly built house, with a wide veranda and balcony on
+three sides of it, completely hidden at present under a pale-purple
+drapery of wistaria.
+
+"It looks like an amethyst," Mollie said admiringly, as they drew
+near. "I never saw such a purple house as that before."
+
+The inside of Drink Between was entirely different from any of the
+other Australian houses which Mollie had been in. They entered by a
+side door which opened straight on to a narrow stairway. The girls
+climbed up to their bedroom, a large airy apartment opening on to
+the balcony.
+
+"Where are your father and mother and Baby?" Mollie asked, as they
+washed away the remains of oranges and gold-digging.
+
+"Papa and Mamma have to go and meet an immigrant ship to-morrow, so
+they aren't coming up till afterwards. And Baby and Bridget are with
+them."
+
+"What's an immigrant ship?" asked Mollie.
+
+"A ship full of immigrants," Prudence replied, brushing out her
+curls with conscientious care. "Immigrants are people who get their
+passage out for nothing, or for very little, and then they go to
+work here. Mamma is getting a new cook because ours is going to be
+married. And Papa likes to meet the Scotch immigrants and say
+welcome to Australia to them. Bridget was an immigrant, but she says
+she will soon be Australian."
+
+"I see," said Mollie thoughtfully. "Are they ever married? I mean--
+do children come with their parents?"
+
+"Yes, lots of them. Are you ready, Mollie? The boys are getting
+impatient. I can hear them growling."
+
+Feeling very fresh and clean in white muslin frocks with pale-blue
+sashes, the girls descended by a different and much wider staircase
+than the one they had gone up by. They stepped off the stairs
+straight into a large hall, or living-room, which apparently
+occupied half the floor of the house, for on two sides it opened on
+to the veranda, and on the third side into a large bamboo house; the
+fourth wall was unbroken but for one door. The room was painted
+white, and the floor covered with fine white Chinese matting, over
+which lay a few Eastern rugs, their once rich and glowing colours
+now dimmed by time and the tread of generations of feet. Through the
+wide-open French windows could be seen the long, graceful streamers
+of wistaria, hanging from the arched boughs round the veranda like a
+lace veil. Against this background grew masses of pale-pink and blue
+hydrangeas, with their flat fragile flowers and broad leaves. The
+bamboo house was given wholly to ferns, over which a fountain was
+playing, and under the fine spray the green fronds glistened as
+freshly as though they grew in the heart of an English wood.
+
+The sun was now setting, and its crimson glow shone through the
+mauve wistaria, filling the room with an opal-coloured light which
+made Mollie think of fairyland. It fell with a peculiarly pleasant
+effect upon a round tea-table spread for tea. She had never seen
+such fine and snowy damask, such shining silver, or such delicately
+transparent china cups and saucers. Even Grannie's well-kept table
+paled before the exquisite freshness of this one. As for the food
+part--there was a crystal bowl of yellow clotted cream, a plate of
+gossamer balls which were probably intended to pass for scones, a
+twist of gold which was most likely meant for bread, and dishes of
+preserves unknown to the English children--tiny green oranges in
+syrup, scarlet rose-berries, and jellies like amber and topaz,
+looking as though some of Hugh's precious stones had been cooked for
+his tea.
+
+They were about half-way through this beautiful meal when there was
+a sound of footsteps on the matting, and a Chinese servant appeared,
+bearing a large iced birthday cake set on a silver tray.
+
+"Hullo, Ah Kew! What you gottee there?" called Hugh, under the
+impression that he was speaking pidgin-English to perfection.
+
+"Master talkee to-day b'long he burfday," Ah Kew replied. "He talkee
+my, wanchee cook makee one piecee burfday-cake." He set the cake
+down in front of Prudence as he spoke.
+
+"Welly good, Ah Kew, Master b'long quitey righty," said Hugh
+approvingly. "Cook makee jolly-good cakee, me eat jolly-good cakee.
+Cook pleased, me pleased, cakee pleased, all jolly-welly pleased."
+
+Ah Kew smiled a slow and mysterious smile, his black eyes closing up
+under his slanting eyebrows, and his blue-capped head nodding. He
+glanced over the tea-table.
+
+"Tea b'long all plopper?" he asked anxiously. "S'pose you wanchee
+more can have plenty more."
+
+"No, thank you, Ah Kew, me eatee more me bustee," Hugh replied
+politely. Ah Kew nodded his head again and departed, his pigtail
+flapping against the long skirts of his blue cotton coat.
+
+Prudence cut the beautiful cake and distributed large slices all
+round. No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about
+not eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to
+circs" as Jerry would say.
+
+The children were all tired after their hard work and excitement;
+Mr. Fraser was not coming home till late, and had left a message to
+say that he expected to find everyone fast asleep in bed when he got
+back; so, after a tour of exploration round the house and its
+immediate neighbourhood, they went off to their rooms, and soon most
+of them were asleep.
+
+Not all of them, however. Whether it was the cake, or the change of
+air, or the strange bed, or still stranger circumstances, or all
+combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to Dick that the
+longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the
+diamond began to worry him, and soon assumed gigantic proportions in
+his mind. Suppose it got lost. Perhaps it was worth a hundred
+pounds, as Jerry had suggested. Suppose a magpie flew off with it.
+It might be worth more than a hundred; perhaps two hundred pounds.
+What if a blackfellow stole it, or the tree fell down in the night,
+or got burnt up. It is true that none of these things had happened
+during the months in which it had lain there before, but _then_ no
+one had known that it was valuable. It would be just like luck, or
+rather unluck, if something happened this particular night. Dick's
+knowledge of diamonds was so small that it could be hardly said to
+exist, and he now began to have nightmarish visions of huge sums of
+money--thousands of pounds perhaps, lost through his folly. To be
+sure, no one knew that he had put the diamond back in the tree. But
+he knew himself, which was the main thing. He tossed from side to
+side restlessly. A new thought perplexed him. How could anything he
+did or left undone matter now, seeing that he wasn't going to be
+born for another thirty years? He belonged to the future, and the
+future could not influence the present--at least, he supposed not,
+but funny things did happen. Anyhow, this was _his_ present for the
+moment, and he had his usual irritating conscience.
+
+He got out of bed at last and went to the window. There was such a
+flood of moonlight that out-of-doors was almost as light as day. Why
+not slip into his clothes and scoot down to the bottom of the scrub-
+land, and collect that diamond? It would be better than tossing
+about in bed, and afterwards he would go calmly to sleep. The
+difficulty would be to get out of the house. Probably Ah Kew was on
+the watch for his master, and, if he saw Dick, would remark "no can
+do", or words to that effect.
+
+Dick went to the edge of the balcony and looked over; it was not
+very far from the ground, but it was too far to jump. How about the
+wistaria boughs? They looked pretty tough--he decided to try, and if
+he fell--well, he had smashed himself up before this more than once,
+and no doubt would do so again. A few tumbles more or less wouldn't
+make much difference to him, especially, he reflected, as he was
+bound to get back to 1920 somehow or other. He could hardly kill
+himself now if he tried.
+
+He reached the ground with nothing worse than a few scratches to his
+credit, and set off along the path by which they had come in the
+afternoon, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge in case Ah Kew's
+beady eyes should be on the outlook. So long as he was within the
+grounds of the house he felt confident and cheerful, but when he
+reached the slip-rail and looked over into the land beyond he felt
+some of his courage oozing away.
+
+It looked eerie, that strange, unfamiliar country, in this white
+light. There were dead trees standing here and there, and their pale
+trunks took unpleasant shapes--they might conceivably be something
+else than trees--not ghosts, of course; there were no such things as
+ghosts. All the tales he had ever read about Australia suddenly
+started up in his mind--tales of deadly snakes, of bushrangers, of
+blackfellows, who had methods of their own of doing you in. One
+might go through a good deal without being actually _killed_. Now
+that he came to think of it, Australia in the 'seventies was a
+wildish sort of place--in some parts at any rate. He wished that he
+was surer where he was--how far away from civilization. He supposed
+that Ned Kelly and his gang were still at large.
+
+But, of course, he could not go back. He stepped cautiously from
+tree to tree, keeping to the black shadows as much as possible. He
+could hear the sound of that little waterfall quite distinctly, and
+see the moonlight on the rippling shallows of the creek--now he
+could see the gum tree he was making for--he had taken particular
+notice of a crooked bough--what on earth was that?
+
+A wild piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the creek brought him
+suddenly to a standstill, his heart in his mouth. Undoubtedly a
+woman was being murdered or tortured. Blackfellows, probably, as Ned
+Kelly made a point of not hurting women--at least so it said in
+_Robbery Under Arms_. Dick wondered what exactly the blackfellows
+had done to the woman--and there was the blood-curdling shriek
+again!
+
+He stood still. After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight?
+He had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a
+much sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild
+and desolate spot all alone. If he had brought Jerry--
+
+Ah, Jerry! There had been that affair of Jerry's eldest brother and
+the guns. Ten wounds. Both legs shot off. "Stick it out, you chaps."
+The very last words he spoke in this world, sweeter in Jerry's ear,
+Dick knew, than the finest poetry ever written. He gathered himself
+together and went on. It would never do to begin a habit of _not_
+sticking it out. For, wherever he was, he was always Dick Gordon to
+himself--a person for whom he wished to have a considerable amount
+of respect.
+
+He wished that the orange grove, so cool and lovely by day, did not
+look so dark and mysterious by night.
+
+At last! Here was the old tree. Now for it. He stepped round,
+prepared to enter the empty hollow regardless of possible snakes or
+blacks, when he heard a sound that made the hair rise on his head
+and the back of his neck feel queer, for it was unmistakably a child
+crying inside the tree. The child of the murdered woman, he thought.
+So the blacks _were_ near--perhaps inside the tree at this very
+moment. The idea flitted across his mind that there was an
+extraordinary difference between reading about a thing and
+experiencing it. As the child's sobs continued he shrunk together--
+he would rather meet an enemy in the open and be shot at twenty
+times than face these savage and mysterious blacks--and then he
+suddenly decided that, if there were a child there, he must go and
+look for it and do his best, blacks or no blacks.
+
+But at that very instant the crying stopped and turned to speaking:
+
+"Please, God, let there be a miracle. Just this once, God. I'm
+sorry, God; I'll be good if you'll make a miracle. Only this once. I
+am very, very sorry." The crying began again.
+
+"Grizzel!" exclaimed Dick, his fears all vanishing like darkness
+before light. "How on earth did she get there? She'll be frightened
+into fits if she sees me." He moved back a little distance and
+stopped to think. The best plan would be to call her softly, he
+decided.
+
+"Grizzel! Where are you, Grizzel? Are you there, kiddy? It's Dick
+calling. Are you in your tree? I'm coming--look out!"
+
+[Illustration: DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY]
+
+He came up to the hollow opening and looked in. It was Grizzel sure
+enough, in her little dressing-gown, her face blotched with tears
+and her curls crushed and tumbled. Dick put an arm round her: "Don't
+cry, kiddy; the diamond is all right."
+
+"Oh, Dick, I did hope there might be a miracle," she sobbed, burying
+her head on his shoulder. "I'm so sorry. My poor little diamond, all
+those years and years shut up in the ground! It had just one look at
+the sun and then I threw it back. Oh, Dick, if God would only make a
+miracle this _once_ and put my diamond back!"
+
+Dick felt a choky sensation in his throat as the thin little arm
+tightened round his neck.
+
+"It's all right, Grizzel," he whispered, "we'll find the diamond--
+let my arm loose a moment." He groped round, and in another minute
+the stone was in his hand. He turned it over, and a pale-green ray
+darted out, more unearthly than ever in the moonlight.
+
+Grizzel gave a cry as he laid it on her palm. "My diamond! The
+miracle! I _thought_ it would happen! I just _thought_ God hadn't
+forgotten the way! Oh, Dick, I am so glad! I am so glad! My own dear
+little diamond!"
+
+Dick had not the heart to explain at the moment that there had been
+no miracle, and Grizzel was far too preoccupied with her own joy and
+relief to wonder what had brought Dick to her tree just then; and
+besides, he thought vaguely, one never knows.
+
+"We must be going in," he said; "it's ever so late and we'll be
+cotched. How on earth did you get out?"
+
+"Down the back stairs. The others were asleep, but I could not
+sleep, thinking of my little diamond in the cold river--" at that
+moment a wild shriek rang out again, and Dick started violently.
+
+"It's only a curlew calling to his friend," Grizzel said, creeping
+out of the hollow. "They scream exactly like people being killed,
+but it's only their way; they mean to be kind."
+
+Dick drew a long breath. A wild bird and a crying child! Suppose he
+had gone back! Thank goodness he hadn't, but it was a near shave.
+
+The boy and girl walked happily along, hand in hand. They had
+reached the slip-rail and were climbing over, when a tall man
+appeared from the garden of Drink Between.
+
+"_Grizzel!_ What in the wide creation are you doing here at this
+hour of night, or rather morning? Do you know it is nearly one
+o'clock? And what are you doing, young man?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Fraser--it's Mr. Fraser," she explained, turning to Dick,
+and such a confused tale followed, in which crystals, gold-mines,
+diamonds, wickedness, and miracles were all jumbled together, that
+Mr. Fraser decided that a glass of milk, a biscuit, and bed, had
+better pave the way to a fuller explanation next day.
+
+Ah Kew let them in with a wise smile and several nods of his head,
+and soon both Dick and Grizzel were sleeping as soundly as the other
+four Time-travellers.
+
+"It is a green diamond," Mr. Fraser pronounced next morning, "but
+what its value is we cannot tell until it is cut and polished. Then
+it will belong to Grizzel, to have and to hold till death do them
+part. If you really have found a diamond-mine, youngsters, something
+will have to be done about shares. Who finds keeps, you know. We'll
+have the place properly surveyed and see what happens. But don't
+begin counting your chickens too soon--these Australian diamond-
+mines are tricksy things; you never know how they are going to pan
+out. Wait a bit before you plan what to do with your fortune."
+
+Mollie, Dick, and Jerry suddenly felt very sad as they remembered
+that they were out of this stroke of luck. Whatever happened,
+Fortune was not preparing to smile on _them_, at least not in a way
+that would be of any immediate practical use to them when they got
+back to London. And a fortune apiece would have come in so very
+handy just now--just forty years hence, that is. The boys made up
+their minds to investigate this matter of fortunes in the colonies
+directly they got home.
+
+Hugh tossed up his hat and caught it again: "We'll be jolly rich,"
+he cried. "The Mater will get her trip home, and the Pater needn't
+worry about bills and subscription lists any more, and I'll get that
+camera--oh, 'hard times, hard times, come again no more!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mollie sat up. The clock was still ticking minutes into hours, hours
+into days, days into weeks and months and years.
+
+"Oh dear," she said, "I do wonder--"
+
+"Wonder what, my Molliekins?" asked Aunt Mary, preceding Hester with
+the tea-tray.
+
+"I wonder," Mollie repeated, and then began to laugh. "I don't
+suppose you ever bit like red-hot nippers, did you, Aunt Mary?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+The Grape-Gatherers or Who was Mr. Smith?
+
+
+Aunt Mary had gone up to London to do some shopping, and when Mollie
+came downstairs next morning she found Grannie installed in the
+drawing-room, instead of in the morning-room as usual, with another
+old lady who had come to spend the day.
+
+"Mrs. Pell and I were at school together," she explained, as she
+introduced her grandchild, "and that was not yesterday," she added,
+as she settled Mollie in an easy-chair with the lame foot up on a
+cushioned frame. "My dear husband used this when he had gout," she
+continued, tucking a warm shawl round Mollie's bandages and large
+bedroom slipper. "It was made in the village under his own
+directions, and is most ingeniously constructed. Poor, dear Richard
+was such an active man; he could not endure to lie on a sofa, and I
+had the greatest difficulty in keeping him to his bed even when his
+attacks were severe."
+
+Mrs. Pell shook her head as she looked admiringly at the foot-rest.
+"James was the same, he hated a sofa and would always sit in a
+chair. Not that he was so active, but he was stout, and stout people
+are more comfortable sitting up than lying on their backs."
+
+Mollie coughed. She had either to cough or to laugh, which, of
+course, would never have done.
+
+"My dear, I trust you have not caught cold," Grannie said anxiously.
+"Perhaps we should close the window. Your Aunt Mary has a perfect
+craze for open windows, and I sometimes think there is a draught in
+this room."
+
+"No, no, Grannie," Mollie protested; "I have not got the least bit
+of cold, and I love the open window; it is so warm to-day. It was
+only a tickle; I get them sometimes--tell me about when you and Mrs.
+Pell were at school, please."
+
+The two old ladies smiled at each other over their spectacles.
+
+"That was not yesterday," Grannie repeated. "You would think very
+poorly of our school. We had no games, no gym-dress, no examinations
+such as you have; but we learnt the use of the globes very
+thoroughly, and we spoke French, so that we were not at a loss when
+we went to Paris later on. Our dancing was much more graceful than
+the foolish gambols with their ridiculous titles which you young
+people call dancing nowadays. Fox-trot, indeed! And bunny-hug. And
+rag-time. I never heard such names in my life! _We_ danced the
+Highland schottische, and the quadrille, and Sir Roger de Coverley.
+And do you remember your famous curtsy, Esther? And how Madame made
+you show off on parents' day?"
+
+"Indeed I do!" Mrs. Pell answered briskly. "I believe I could do it
+now, this moment. I have been wonderfully free of rheumatism this
+year."
+
+"Do, do," Mollie begged, overlooking the insult to her beloved fox-
+trot in her anxiety to see a real old-fashioned curtsy.
+
+Mrs. Pell laid her knitting on one side, rose from her chair, and
+walked to the middle of the room. She shook her somewhat ample black
+silk skirt into place, tilted her chin to an angle that gave her a
+decidedly haughty expression, and stood facing Grannie and Mollie.
+
+"You must imagine yourselves to be our beloved Queen Victoria and
+our beautiful and gracious Alexandra, Princess of Wales," she said,
+looking so elegant and distinguished that Mollie suddenly felt
+rather small and shy, while Grannie, on the other hand, drew herself
+up into what was presumably the attitude of Her late Majesty.
+
+Mrs. Pell lifted her skirts with an easy turn of her pretty hands
+and wrists, pointed a charming foot, so small that it made Mollie
+gasp, and began to sink slowly down. Down, down, down she swept, her
+skirt billowing out around her, her shoulders square, her head
+erect--down till she all but touched the floor, and how she kept her
+balance was a perfect miracle; then slowly up, with an indescribably
+graceful curve of neck and elbows, till once more she stood erect,
+pleased and triumphant, a pretty pink flush on her cheeks.
+
+Grannie clapped her hands. "There, Miss Mollie! That was how _we_
+were taught to curtsy! There's nothing resembling a fox about
+_that_!" she exclaimed, as Mrs. Pell took her seat again and resumed
+her knitting.
+
+"It was perfectly lovely," Mollie agreed warmly, "but it does
+require the right kind of skirt, Grannie. Did anyone ever topple
+over at the critical moment?"
+
+"Not that I can remember," Mrs. Pell answered; "but, of course, it
+required a great deal of practice, and we did many exercises before
+we got the length of our court curtsy. Do you remember Ellen
+Bathurst, Daisy?" (How funny it sounded to hear Grannie called
+Daisy.) "And the time all the brandy-balls fell out of her pocket?
+_How_ angry Madame was!"
+
+Of course Mollie had to hear about the adventure of the brandy-
+balls, and from that the talk drifted to memories of old friends
+long since dead and gone, whose names Mollie had never heard. It was
+a little depressing, and her thoughts wandered away to the
+Campbells. She wondered where she would find herself that afternoon,
+and then remembered with dismay that Aunt Mary was away and there
+would be no tunes.
+
+But after lunch Grannie insisted upon the sofa as usual. "You shall
+have your lullaby," she said. "Mrs. Pell and I are going to play
+duets. We used to play a great deal together when we were young, and
+no doubt our music is just the thing for sending you to sleep; it
+has a base and a treble and some perfectly distinct tunes."
+
+"Don't be sarcastic, Grannie," Mollie laughed, as Grannie bent to
+kiss her. "I am sure it is beautiful music, and I like tunes myself.
+Jean is the musical one of our family. She jiggles up and down the
+piano in no particular key and calls it 'The Scent of Lilac on a
+June Day'."
+
+"Well, well," said Grannie. "Times change. We are going to play
+selections from _Faust_, with variations. Sleep quietly till tea-
+time, my dear."
+
+Mollie smiled as she listened to the selections. "--two-three,
+_one_-two-three, _one_--" she could hear the treble counting. "I
+like it," she murmured to herself rather sleepily--the morning's
+conversation had not been exciting on her side. "I am glad I am not
+James, for this is an awfully comfortable sofa--hullo, Prue! You
+_are_ in a hurry to-day! I was just thinking of a nap--"
+
+Prudence did not answer; she was listening to the piano.
+
+"Mamma sings that," she said. "It's _Faust_. I adore _Faust_. Don't
+you? The waltz simply makes my feet go wild."
+
+"I don't know it," Mollie confessed. "There are so many things I
+don't know. Hurry up, Prue. I have had such an aged morning; now I
+want a young afternoon."
+
+"--two-three, _one_-two-three, _one_--" said Prue, taking Mollie's
+hand in her own.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was very hot. So hot that Mollie could not be bothered to move.
+She was half-sitting, half-lying on a bed of bracken, and around her
+she could see the supine forms of four other children--Prudence and
+Grizzel, Dick and Jerry--all lying in various attitudes of
+exhaustion and apparently all asleep. Mollie was too lazy to turn
+her head, but she could see that they were in a wood. The trees were
+the eternal gum trees, with their monotonous grey trunks and
+perpetual blue-green foliage. They were not growing in the
+neighbourly manner of trees in an English wood, nor did they throw
+the cool green shade of elms and beeches, but still in their own way
+they formed a wood. Mollie lay with her back propped up against one
+of the grey trunks, her arms behind her head, and her eyes blinking
+sleepily. She wondered where Hugh was.
+
+"You _are_ a lazy lot," said a voice behind her. "I have been
+helping in the vineyards all morning, and I've discovered a new kind
+of grape. Mr. von Greusen thinks it might turn out to be a good
+champagne grape. The carts are coming down; don't you want to see
+them?"
+
+As he spoke Hugh came round and stood at Mollie's side. He wore a
+coat of tussore silk, and his shirt was open at the neck; a wide
+pith helmet was on his head, draped with a striped pugaree with
+broad ends hanging down his back, and further decorated with vine
+leaves, which looked rather droopy in the heat. He held out a hand
+to Mollie and pulled her up, looking scornfully at the recumbent
+figures of Jerry and Dick.
+
+"What a way to spend the time!" he exclaimed. "Their eyes tight shut
+and their legs spread out like dried fruit. _They'll_ never discover
+a new grape and have the most famous champagne in the world called
+after them. Come on!"
+
+Mollie had been listening for a little while to a distant rumble. It
+now resolved itself into the uneven racketty grind of heavy cart-
+wheels on a rough track. She went forward with Hugh, and, shading
+her eyes from the glare of the sun, looked up the road which wound
+between the trees of the wood they were in. As she watched, the
+carts came into view round a bend of the track, and soon they were
+passing before her. A team of six oxen drew each heavy load--such a
+load as Mollie had never seen in her life. Grapes! Grapes piled up
+like turnips! They had been thrown in by careless hands accustomed
+to working with rich harvests, and here and there they hung over the
+sides, or dropped to the ground, to be trodden under foot by
+indifferent beasts and weary men.
+
+The noise of trampling feet and creaking wheels disturbed the
+sleepers, who, one by one, got up and came beside Mollie and Hugh.
+There was a smell of hot grapes in the air, mingled with the smell
+of sweating oxen, dry grass, and pungent eucalyptus, and the spilled
+juice of grapes mixing with the hot dust of the track added a
+peculiar aroma of its own to the general nosegay, as Dick described
+it. Mollie thought that she could never remember smelling anything
+so thirst-inducing in all her days. When the last cart had
+disappeared down the winding road, and the noisy rattle had died
+away to a distant rumble again, Hugh sat down on the trunk of a
+fallen tree and stretched his arms.
+
+"Where are they going?" asked Dick, now wideawake and curious. "What
+happens next?"
+
+"They're going to Mr. von Greusen's place to be made into wine,"
+Hugh answered, "and it's a funny thing that however nice grapes are
+raw they are all equally nasty when turned into wine. Some go sour
+and black and you call it claret, and some go sharp and yellow and
+you call it Frontignac or any other silly yellow name. What _I_
+should like to invent would be a kind of drink that tasted of
+grapes, fresh sweet grapes. I'd add a dash of peach, and a slice or
+two of melon, and a bottle of soda-water. And just enough powdered
+sugar. And ice."
+
+"Let's go and get the things now and make it this very minute," said
+Grizzel, tying on her sun-bonnet and making ready to start. "I'm
+_so_ thirsty."
+
+"It's too late to-day, and besides I'm tired. There was a man up
+there who wanted to know all sorts of things about the vineyards.
+Mr. von Greusen was too busy to go round with him, so he sent me. He
+was pleased with me for discovering that grape. The man's name is
+John Smith. I think he is French."
+
+Mollie laughed.
+
+"What are you laughing at?" asked Hugh, looking all ready to be
+offended.
+
+"Oh--nothing--I'm not laughing," Mollie declared; "it's only a sort
+of tickle; I get it sometimes."
+
+"John Smith isn't exactly a French name," said Jerry. "Why do you
+think he is French?"
+
+"Because he called Mr. von Greusen a 'vigneron' and talked about
+'hectares' instead of acres, and 'hectolitres' instead of gallons,
+and he told me how vines were trained in Champagne and Burgundy and
+Languedoc--all very Frenchy. Mr. von Greusen never talks like that.
+He was interested in my new grape, but he's afraid it won't go on
+being like it is now. He says it has about one chance in a hundred.
+I don't mind betting you sixpence it _will_ be a champagne grape."
+
+"I don't mind betting you sixpence he isn't French if his name is
+John Smith," said Jerry. "You might as well call yourself a Scotsman
+named Chung Li Chang."
+
+"Oh--names! Names are nothing out here," Hugh said loftily. "We can
+call ourselves what we please. This is the Land of Liberty. Besides,
+Papa knows a Scotsman called Devereux, so there you are."
+
+"Faugh!" said Jerry scornfully. "That's nothing! Everyone knows that
+Scotland is full of French names."
+
+"I suppose you are trying to say 'sfaw'," said Hugh coldly. "There
+is nothing to sfaw about. Lots of Chinese people come to Australia
+and call themselves John Smith if they choose."
+
+"Faugh!" Jerry repeated.
+
+"Sfaw!" said Hugh.
+
+"Faugh--" Jerry began, but Dick interrupted.
+
+"If you two asses are trying to say pshaw you are both wrong. I
+happened to see it in the dictionary a few days ago and it is
+pronounced shaw; it's a silly sort of word anyhow. No one uses it in
+real life. Shut your jaws and stop your shaws and let's go and get a
+drink."
+
+"You can go," said Hugh, whose feelings were injured by the lack of
+interest in his new grape. "I'm going to stay here for the present."
+
+"Leave him alone and he'll come home and bring his grape behind
+him," sang Grizzel, as they set off down the hill. Hugh pretended
+not to hear.
+
+"I wish I was a Red Indian," he muttered to himself, as he watched
+the little party straggling down the road. "I'd invent some first-
+rate tortures for Grizzel."
+
+The children trudged along the track between the trees. The air was
+full of dust stirred up by the carts, the sun seemed to grow hotter
+and hotter every moment, "putting on a sprint before the finish",
+Dick groaned, and the children grew thirstier and thirstier, till
+Mollie felt she could hardly bear it for one minute more. Her lips
+and tongue were dry and parched, and, although she kept her mouth
+shut, the dust blew up her nose and down her dry throat. She felt as
+if the sun were hitting her on the back between her shoulders, and
+her feet kept stumbling over the deep ruts in the road. "A Guide's
+motto is never say die till you are dead," she thought to herself.
+"There _are_ times when I wish I were not a Guide, and this is one
+of them. 'Be Loyal.' Oh--_bother_ Baden-Powell!" She held up three
+fingers to remind herself of the Guide Law, and tried her best to
+smile. "How do the others get on without it?" she wondered, watching
+Prue and Grizzel as they loitered along just before her, Grizzel
+dragging weary little feet in the dust. "I suppose they are used to
+it. Life in Australia isn't _all_ beer and skittles. I wonder what
+skittles are? If they are something nice to drink I wish we had some
+here. Even beer would be better than nothing. I _am_ a beautiful
+Patrol Leader! Walking behind and grousing for all I am worth." She
+hurried her steps a little and made up to the boys.
+
+"Let's make a queen's chair and carry Grizzel," she suggested. "She
+looks about done. We can do it in turns, Dick and me, then Prue and
+Jerry."
+
+"Righto!" said both boys at once.
+
+"But you girls needn't do it," Dick added. "Jerry and I have carried
+heavier loads than that, haven't we, old son-of-a-gun?"
+
+"Faugh!" said Jerry, with a wink.
+
+Fortunately for the boys, and for Mollie, whose pride as a Patrol
+Leader was now up in arms, and perhaps most fortunately for Grizzel,
+whose weight was by no means fairy-like, they were overtaken at that
+moment by an empty cart, the driver of which pulled up and invited
+them all to jump in. It was a relief to sit down, though the floor
+of the cart was far from clean, and they were rattled and bumped
+like dried peas in a basket. Mollie thought the road would never
+end, and began to wonder at what stage of thirst delirium came on.
+But the longest lane has a turning, and at last they came in sight
+of a white house standing in the middle of an untidy sort of garden.
+The usual balcony ran round it, but this time it was approached by a
+wide flight of steps leading up from the drive in front. The cart
+stopped before a wooden gate, and without a word Prue led the way to
+the back veranda, where a row of canvas bags hung swinging from the
+roof. There were taps in the bags, but Prue ignored them. She
+climbed on to the veranda railing, dipped a tumbler into a bag, and
+handed it down to Mollie.
+
+Oh, the exquisite joy of that drink! The water was deliciously cold;
+it trickled over Mollie's parched tongue, irrigated her dried-up
+throat, washed away the dust she had been inhaling, and in half a
+minute made her feel like a newly-made-over girl.
+
+"It is worth while being thirsty," she said, as she watched the
+others revive under the same treatment. "I never knew before what a
+delicious thing water is. I'd like some more, please."
+
+"I wish we were all giraffes," Grizzel said, with a sigh. "I'd like
+to have a throat a yard long and just sit here for ever letting cold
+water bubble down its hotness."
+
+"What about Hugh?" asked Jerry, his conscience smiting him now that
+the irritating effect of heat and thirst had departed, and he
+reflected that his slighting remarks were probably the cause of
+Hugh's absence from this refreshing entertainment. "I expect he is
+the thirstiest of the lot, seeing he is the only one who did any
+work."
+
+"He had his billy-can of cold tea with him this morning," Prue
+answered, "and if he _is_ thirsty it is his own fault for being so
+huffy. Anyhow, he likes to practise enduring things; he says it is a
+useful habit. The worst of it is he thinks everyone else should
+endure too. I don't see the slightest use in making disagreeable
+things happen ten times just in case they should have to happen
+once."
+
+Hugh seemed to have forgotten his grievance when he got home. He
+arrived along with Mr. von Greusen, who came to supper and talked to
+Papa about vintages and vines, the prospects of the wine industry,
+the possibilities of olive culture, and other subjects interesting
+to Australians but a trifle dull for the English listeners.
+Presently, however, the name of John Smith was introduced, and the
+boys pricked up their ears.
+
+"He asks many questions," said Mr. von Greusen, "but I do not think
+that his heart is in the vineyard, as the heart of a man must be if
+he wishes to make his wine world-famous. In your work, that is where
+your heart must be, my children," he added, looking solemnly at the
+boys.
+
+"And where do you think that the heart of Mr. John Smith is?" Papa
+asked, with a twinkle in his blue eyes.
+
+"Ah!" said Mr. von Greusen, shaking his head, "that know I not. The
+heart of a young man who brings himself to Australia and whose feet
+tread the vineyard while his eyes look far away, so that he
+repeatedly trips over obstacles--where is it?" He shook his head
+again and hummed in a melodious baritone:
+
+  "Mädchen mit dem rothen Mündchen
+  Mit den Äuglein süss und klar."
+
+"Aha!" laughed the professor, "I have seen more than one young man
+come to Australia to cure _that_ disease. But I don't recommend the
+vineyard."
+
+"I also not. Mr. John Smith should squat," said Mr. von Greusen.
+
+Mollie laughed so suddenly that she choked, and brought a look of
+disapproval upon herself from her hostess.
+
+"You may go, children. Mr. von Greusen wishes to hear you play,
+Prudence. Wait in the drawing-room till we come."
+
+"Why did you go and laugh?" Hugh asked Mollie, as they trooped off
+to the drawing-room and thence to the balcony to enjoy the cool
+breeze which had sprung up. "I wanted to hear more about Mr. John
+Smith. I don't understand German. Do you? Why did Papa laugh?"
+
+"I don't know much German, but I think _Mädchen_ means girl," Mollie
+answered. "I couldn't help laughing. Squatting sounds such a funny
+cure for being in love." She giggled again.
+
+"_Girl_!" Hugh exclaimed."_Girl_! I didn't think he was _that_ sort
+of an idiot! He talked quite all right to me. No wonder Papa
+laughed. It's much funnier than squatting, I can tell you. There's
+nothing to laugh at in being a squatter. They're as rich as What's-
+his-name. Some of them are millionaires. I wish Papa was a squatter--but
+he would be no use on a sheep-run; you've got to be in the
+saddle all day, and keep your eyes skinned for blackfellows half the
+night. John Smith looked the very chap for it. _Girl_!"
+
+"You needn't go on saying _girl_ in that voice," said Grizzel. "It
+isn't the girl who is tumbling about with loverishness; it's Mr.
+Smith."
+
+"What happened to the diamond-mine?" Mollie interrupted, feeling
+that another squabble was in the air. "Did you make a fortune, and
+is this house it?"
+
+"Oh no--this house belongs to the Bertram Fitzherberts; they are
+fruit-farmers. They have gone home for a trip, and they told Papa to
+come here for the holidays, if he liked. Mr. von Greusen looks after
+the farm for them. His vineyard begins a little farther up the hill.
+The diamond-mine hasn't begun to pay yet, but it soon will."
+
+"Do you like--is Mr. von Greusen a nice man?" Mollie asked
+hesitatingly; it felt a little queer to be such friends with the
+late (or the future, Mollie was a trifle mixed) enemy.
+
+"Nice! Of course he is. Jolly nice, and jolly clever too. Why do you
+ask?"
+
+"Oh--I don't know--he is a foreigner, and sometimes foreigners are--
+they're different."
+
+"I don't know what you mean by different. Everybody is different
+from everybody else. Anyhow, he isn't a foreigner here; he is an
+Australian."
+
+"What happens if you go to war?" asked Dick.
+
+"We don't go to war. We are too far away to fight against other
+countries, and we will never fight each other, like America, and
+France, and the Wars of the Roses. There's nothing to fight about
+and there never will be. Of course--if we _wanted_ to we _could_.
+We'd be first-class fighters if we weren't so peaceful. In fact,"
+Hugh continued, in a somewhat dreamy tone, "I have invented, or at
+least thought about, several rather good things for fighting with--
+but they will never be wanted in Australia. Papa says that if ever
+there was a sweet and blessed country on earth it is Australia; it
+is full of peace and goodwill towards all men."
+
+The English children were silent. It was a good thing, they thought,
+that people could not see into the future. Time-travelling was
+certainly best done backwards. And yet--who would want to wipe out
+the record of the Anzacs? Life was a fairly puzzling job, when you
+saw too far ahead.
+
+"Papa says," Grizzel repeated, "that Australian people ought to be
+the goodest people in the world, because there is a beautiful Cross
+always shining in the sky to remind us of the Beloved Son, like the
+rainbow, so that we should never forget. But I do. Nothing in the
+world seems to keep me from forgetting to be good just when I most
+want to remember." Grizzel heaved a sigh from the very bottom of her
+sinful little heart.
+
+Everyone's eyes turned towards the Southern Cross, conspicuous even
+amongst the myriad stars shining and throbbing with tropical
+brilliance in the velvety blackness of the sky. Mollie remembered
+that it decorated the Australian flag, and she wondered if the sight
+of it had made the soldiers homesick sometimes. They were _real_
+Australians, she thought to herself, born and bred in this sunny
+land. She could remember a day when she had been walking with her
+mother in the Pimlico Road--a dark, foggy, raw day in late autumn.
+They had come upon a group of Australian soldiers standing round the
+door of a little green-grocer's shop, and chaffing the good-natured
+shop-woman about the quality of her fruit. Mother had stopped to
+speak to them. Mollie could not remember exactly what had passed,
+but the men had been friendly and communicative, and if they had
+groused about the English climate they had some cause, she thought,
+considering the climate they had come from; and they were cheerful
+about the war--she could remember that, for their voices had
+followed them through the fog singing "Australia will be there!" to
+what she had thought was a very lively and pleasant tune--and yet
+Mother had tears in her eyes. It was a good idea, she reflected,
+having that device on the flag, for it really was a bit of home--for
+them. Poor men! Suddenly a new thought came into her mind.
+
+"Look!" she whispered, laying a hand on Jerry's arm and pointing to
+the Cross, "look! how brightly it shines! _Their name liveth for
+evermore!_"
+
+Prue had slipped indoors and was playing a grave prelude and fugue
+of Bach's. The three older people joined the children in the
+balcony, and sat quietly listening till she had finished.
+
+"That was very good, my child," said Mr. von Greusen, patting her
+approvingly on the shoulder, "very good indeed. Next winter we shall
+study together some piano and violin duets. And now perhaps your
+_verehrte Frau Mutter_ will make some of her beautiful music for us.
+Some Schubert songs, yes?"
+
+So Mamma went in, and she and Mr. von Greusen both made beautiful
+music, separately and together, which the audience in the balcony
+enjoyed without troubling to understand, Prue being the only one
+among them who loved music with her head as well as with her heart.
+
+A sound of footsteps on the path below attracted the children's
+attention. Someone was walking slowly backwards and forwards,
+obviously listening to the music. As he passed through the long beam
+of light sent out by the lamp into the darkness, he turned up his
+face for a moment.
+
+"It is Mr. John Smith," Hugh said in a low voice. "Shall I ask him
+to come up, Papa? He looks lonely out there all by himself."
+
+"By all means ask him to come up," Papa whispered cordially; "but go
+quietly, my son, or Mamma will be out to know who is there, and our
+concert will be over."
+
+Hugh departed on his errand, returning in a few moments with a tall
+figure in his wake, which he led to one of the long cane chairs
+scattered about, and left to its own meditations.
+
+The children looked curiously at Mr. John Smith, He appeared to be a
+dark-haired young man, with a considerable amount of nose and chin
+and a good many inches of leg. He sat very still, his eyes fixed on
+the starry sky before him. There was, in his general outline in the
+semi-darkness of the balcony, something vaguely familiar to Mollie--
+one of those tantalizing impressions that come and go and refuse to
+be laid hold of.
+
+"But I _can't_ have seen him before," she said to herself; "it is
+quite impossible." She looked away and tried to get to where she had
+been before Mr. Smith came up--to that fairyland which the musician
+summons up with a wave of his magic wand, especially perhaps for
+those who love music mostly with their hearts, but the teasing
+little impression disturbed her like an imp. Until the notes of
+Schubert's "Adieu" came floating out into the night and carried them
+all on its wings up to the very gates of Heaven.
+
+The sound of the piano closing brought them back to earth. The
+musicians stepped out on to the balcony.
+
+"_Ende vom Lied,_" Mr. von Greusen said, as he left the lighted room
+behind him, "and the end of the evening too, for me. I must be
+getting home--hullo, Smith! Where did you come from? Am I to have
+the pleasure of introducing you to Professor and Mrs. Campbell, or
+has someone stolen a march upon me?"
+
+"I brought him up," Hugh answered. "He heard Mamma singing and was
+fascinated like flies and moths and things."
+
+They laughed as Mr. Smith made his apologies while he joined in the
+laughter. "You must come again," Mamma said, "and we will have a
+concert properly prepared for you. And you will give me all the news
+from home," she added, with the wistful note that was so often in
+her voice, "unless you will come in now, and try our Australian
+wine?"
+
+But the young man could not stay, and, after a few more words of
+thanks and a grateful promise to come again at the earliest possible
+opportunity, he went off with Mr. von Greusen.
+
+"Who _is_ Mr. Smith?" Mollie asked, as they moved bedwards. "Doesn't
+anybody know who he is?"
+
+"He is a young man newly out from home, and that is enough for Papa
+and Mamma," Hugh answered, with a yawn. "What does it matter who he
+is so long as he is a nice chap."
+
+"But suppose he was a bushranger in disguise and--"
+
+"Suppose he is Nebuchadnezzar, King of the Jews," Hugh interrupted,
+with another yawn. "I'm going to bed. We shall sleep tonight, with
+that cool wind. Thank goodness."
+
+Next morning found them again on the winding road which led up to
+the vineyards. For three-quarters of the way it ran through the
+woods of yesterday; then they left the woods behind and emerged on
+to a bare and shadeless track on the hill-side, and ten minutes
+later they turned in through the gate of the vineyard Mr. von
+Greusen had given them permission to "browse" in, as he had
+expressed it. The English children had never seen a vineyard in
+their lives, and their expectations were inclined to be romantic and
+artistic. Large bunches of thin-skinned, bloomy purple grapes,
+hanging gracefully down from something like a pergola, was the
+picture they had formed in their minds. Mollie, it is true, had seen
+grapes growing in the cherry garden, but they had been so surrounded
+by cherry trees and other exciting objects that they had not left
+any great impression.
+
+They found the reality somewhat disappointing. Here were acres of
+straight green lines hardly higher than gooseberry-bushes, and
+without a single tree to break the monotony or to cast a welcome
+shade. The bunches of grapes looked inviting enough, hanging among
+their decorative leaves and tendrils, but they had not been thinned
+and consequently were smaller than English hothouse grapes, while
+exposure to wind and dust had removed most of their bloom; but, in
+spite of their comparatively homely appearance, the children soon
+found that the fruit tasted sweet and luscious as only freshly
+gathered, sun-ripened fruit can do.
+
+"This is Mr. von Greusen's experimental field," Hugh explained. "He
+mostly grows different lots for different wines, but here he has all
+sorts. We like these Ladies' Fingers; they go off in your mouth with
+such a nice squelch."
+
+"What happens if you eat his favourite experiment?" asked Jerry,
+squelching his way diligently through a bunch of long, slender
+grapes of a translucent pale-green colour.
+
+"He says, '_Donnerwetter_! What see I?'" Hugh answered; "but he ties
+a red worsted round his first-class experiments and then we know. He
+has tied _all_ my new grapes up except the bunch he took home."
+
+Now that the children were in the vineyard, and heard Hugh talking
+learnedly of Black Portugals, Verdeilho, Shirez, and other strange-
+sounding names, they were more reverential towards his new grape,
+which _might_ be called Hughenne, or even, he generously suggested,
+either Gordello or Campdonne.
+
+"It has to have a winey sound, you see," he said, "or it wouldn't
+sell. I think 'Gordello' sounds rather well myself."
+
+It did not take very long to satisfy their appetite for grapes. The
+sun got hotter, their eyes ached with the glare, and they decided to
+return to the coolness of the woods and gardens lower down. The boys
+wanted to go exploring; the girls were to be left to collect peaches
+and melons for the new drink--which might bear the honoured name of
+Gordello until the famous champagne was put on the market--which
+would then be ready and cooling in the spring of the Fairy Dell by
+the time that the explorers were weary of exploring. Thus planned
+the boys.
+
+"Boys propose, girls dispose," paraphrased Mollie, as the three pith
+helmets disappeared, after their owners had condescended to gather a
+share of the Gordello-destined grapes and carry them part of the way
+towards the Dell. "If Dick and Jerry want drinks they can jolly well
+come and make them. _I_ am going to have a rest."
+
+Prue looked a little shocked, but Grizzel heartily agreed with
+Mollie. "I shall pull six peaches and one water-melon _exactly_,"
+she said. "I am tired and my legs ache, and I can't be bothered with
+Hugh and his old Gordello."
+
+A short walk down the road between the gum trees brought them to the
+fruit gardens, where Mollie saw peaches that made up by their
+magnificence for any hothouse elegance lacking in the grapes. Large
+as apples, soft and downy as velvet, glowing with crimson and gold,
+they were a perfect revelation of what peaches could be when they
+tried, and Mollie could hardly bear to wait till they reached the
+Fairy Dell before devouring one. But Prudence was firm.
+
+"No, Mollie; not after all those grapes while you are hot and tired.
+Come and get your water-melon, and we'll go straight to the Dell and
+rest and eat peaches there. If you ate them now you might die all of
+a sudden, and that would be _so_ awkward for Grizzel and me."
+
+Mollie thought it would be more awkward for her, but did not argue.
+She followed Prue obediently, finding her basket of grapes, plus six
+peaches and a large water-melon, quite enough to absorb all her
+energies. If only Gordello were an accomplished fact, she thought,
+it would be very delightful. If someone else had made it and _she_
+could find it "cooling in the spring", as the boys expected to do,
+it would be extraordinarily delicious, and the more she thought of
+it the more delicious it became in her fancy. Poor boys! She was
+sorry for the disappointment awaiting them. Australians seemed to be
+a strenuous lot of people; no wonder the Australian soldiers were so
+brown and chinny.
+
+Her meditations on chinny Australians lasted till they reached the
+Fairy Dell, the sight of which chased every other thought from her
+head. Surrounded by she-oaks and native cherry trees a smoothly
+curved hollow lay at the foot of a rocky declivity, its sides
+clothed with ferns almost startlingly green amidst the dried-up
+grass which covered most of the country around. A silvery cascade of
+water fell down the rock at the far side, its fine spray blown by
+the wind over the little hollow, looking in the sunlight like the
+veil of a fairy bride. Mollie recognized the delicate fronds of
+maidenhair growing in clumps here and there, and the edge of the
+pool at the bottom of the hollow was fringed with wild forget-me-
+nots.
+
+The children scrambled down and seated themselves in a shady spot,
+untying their sun-bonnets and holding their hot and dusty faces
+towards the filmy veil of foam.
+
+"It is heavenly," Mollie said, with a long sigh, as she sniffed up
+the cool scent of the damp ferns. "I don't wonder you call it the
+Fairy Dell."
+
+"It is Mamma's favourite spot, and we often have picnics here," said
+Prue, hanging her sun-bonnet on a branch of she-oak that spread
+above them. "There's the water all ready, you see, and there's a
+place up there where we can light our fire. Mamma sketches, and we
+bring our books or we hunt for wild flowers; it is always a nice
+place to be in. Now we can eat our fruit." She produced a knife from
+her basket and cut a melon in halves. Its delicate pink flesh and
+black seeds called forth more enthusiastic admiration from Mollie.
+
+"Let us arrange all the things among the ferns," she suggested, "and
+gather some forget-me-nots to put beside that pink melon; then the
+purple grapes; then the peaches--isn't it _pretty_, Prue?"
+
+Prue nodded her head; she was speechless with melon, and soon the
+other two were following her example; and melon was followed by
+peaches.
+
+Then Grizzel jumped to her feet. "There is a cache here," she said.
+"Papa often pops something in for a surprise when he passes this
+way. I'm going to look; there might be a pencil there, and I want to
+draw that fruit."
+
+She soon returned, carrying in her hand a small basket, which
+yielded up two books, a small sketching-block, and a box of
+chocolates. "You can have the books," she announced, "one is _From
+Six to Sixteen_, by Mrs. Ewing, and the other is _Twenty Thousand
+Leagues under the Sea_, by Jules Verne."
+
+Mollie, being the guest, got first choice and took Jules Verne,
+turning the pictures over with much interest as she compared the
+_Nautilus_ with the submarine of 1920.
+
+"I do think," she said emphatically, helping herself to a large
+chocolate-cream with entire disregard of both past and future, "I do
+think that your father is a perfect _peach_."
+
+Grizzel glanced up from her drawing to the still-life study before
+her. "He is more the shape of a water-melon," she remarked.
+
+Mollie laughed.
+
+"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prue said angrily. "How can you speak so
+disrespectfully of Papa? You should be ashamed of yourself."
+
+"I'm _not_ disrespectful," Grizzel answered indignantly. "I think it
+is a beautiful shape."
+
+Mollie laughed again.
+
+"You _are_ disrespectful," Prue repeated, turning very red. "Papa
+does the dearest, sweetest things, and all your thanks is to make
+Mollie laugh at him. It is horrible of you, and I don't call it very
+nice of Mollie."
+
+"I'm not laughing at your father," Mollie said; "I wouldn't dream of
+doing such a thing. I'm laughing at Grizzel. She is so funny."
+
+"I'm _not_ funny," said Grizzel, turning as red as Prudence, "and if
+you laugh at Papa for being partly the shape of a water-melon, I'll
+laugh at _your_ father. Your father is an unripe olive and your
+mother is a bitter almond," she added vindictively.
+
+But if she expected Mollie to be insulted she was disappointed, for
+that young person went off into fits of cackling giggles which she
+vainly tried to suppress. At last she rose to her feet.
+
+"I've got the giggles badly," she spluttered out. "I get them
+sometimes. I think I had better go away for a little till I am
+better. I _really_ am not laughing at your father. I think he is a
+perfectly lovely father."
+
+"Then you shouldn't call names," said Prue, still very red. "How
+would you like me to call your father an apricot?"
+
+"I shouldn't mind in the least," answered Mollie, giggling worse
+than ever. "You don't understand. I'll go away, and I'll explain
+when I am better."
+
+She seized her sunbonnet, tucked her book under her arm, climbed up
+the side of the ferny dell, crossed the track, and ran into the wood
+on the farther side, leaving Prue and Grizzel to finish the squabble
+between themselves.
+
+"We have eaten too much, that's what's the matter," she said to
+herself, as she slowed down to a walk and the giggle became less
+severe. "This hot sun all the time makes one feel crossish."
+
+She came to a halt at the foot of a hollow gum tree, and stooping a
+little she peered within. It looked shady and cool, its floor
+powdered with decayed bark mixed with dead leaves--quite clean
+enough, she decided, to sit upon and rest until her giggles had
+finally subsided. She crept in, snuggled down comfortably, opened
+her book, and soon was deep in the adventures of Professor Arrownax,
+Ned Land, Captain Nemo, and the rest.
+
+The shadows swung slowly round, the sun climbed higher and higher,
+and the day grew hotter and hotter, but Mollie, skimming along the
+bottom of the sea in the _Nautilus_ was oblivious of heat. She was
+walking in the submarine forest of the Island of Crespo, treading on
+sand "sown with the impalpable dust of shells", when the sudden
+cracking of a sun-dried branch near at hand startled her and
+reminded her that time was passing. She closed her book, crept out
+of her tree, and set off towards the Dell.
+
+"I wish," she said impatiently to herself, "that Time would find
+something new to do. His one idea seems to be to pass. He may fly or
+he may crawl, but he is _incessantly_ passing."
+
+She stood still as she spoke and looked before her. Surely the trees
+were growing more closely together than they had seemed to do; their
+tall grey-white trunks repeated themselves in a most bewildering
+way, and right in her path lay a fallen giant which she was
+perfectly certain she had not passed before.
+
+"Bother! I have come the wrong way," she said, turning round and
+retracing her steps. "I remember now, there were some trees with
+rings cut round their trunks--there they are."
+
+She reached the ringed trees, turned her back upon them, and walked
+straight on. But she came to a dried-up creek which she had not seen
+before. She could not have missed seeing it, for it was too wide to
+jump. And there were more ringed trees.
+
+"I can't be far from the Dell, that's one thing certain. I'll coo-
+ee."
+
+She coo-eed her best and shrillest, but no answer came. There was no
+sound but the occasional scamper of some small furry animal or the
+unhomely call of an Australian parrot or magpie. All around her the
+monotonous grey trunks stood, as much alike as the pillars of a
+town-hall, and overhead the blue-green leaves stirred languidly in
+the warm wind. Mollie was standing, though she did not know it, on
+primeval forest land.
+
+What she did begin to realize was that she was lost.
+
+"I _can't_ be far away," she repeated to herself. "I wasn't running
+for five minutes. The point is, how am I to find the way back.
+Everything is so difficult in this upside-down place; I haven't the
+least idea which is north and which is south; nor which way the wind
+blows, nor how the shadows fall, nor _anything_; and if I go the
+wrong way I will only get farther and farther from the Dell. The
+best plan really is to sit down and wait till someone comes. Someone
+is sure to look for me sooner or later; Dick and Jerry will,
+anyhow." She looked about her again in search of inspiration.
+Sitting down and waiting was not a cheerful prospect. Dick and Jerry
+might whisk away home and leave her behind. Or she might merely wake
+up suddenly and find herself in the Chauncery morning-room, safe but
+dull, or--just supposing she didn't! Supposing that she couldn't get
+back without Prue, and that she turned into an interesting case for
+the What's-its-name Society, to be read about in learned books!
+
+"I might try climbing a tree," she thought, gazing round in search
+of something climbable. But the tall, smooth trunks were
+discouraging; there were few with boughs within her reach, and the
+few there were were too low to be of any use as observation posts.
+She sat down and resolutely opened her book. "Never say die till you
+are dead," she repeated, firmly fastening the Guide's smile on to
+her face. "I'll read, and coo-ee every third page."
+
+But she no longer walked in the submarine forest; she only sat in a
+wood and read about other people doing it, lifting her eyes from the
+page every now and then, and turning her head uneasily from side to
+side, feeling very lonely in that great, still place!
+
+What was that? A magpie or a human whistle? "--two-three, _one_-two-
+three, _one_--". Someone was whistling the air from _Faust_. Mollie
+sprang to her feet and coo-eed with all her might and main. The
+whistling stopped short, and there was an answering shout in a man's
+voice. Mollie coo-eed again.
+
+"Hi! You'll have to come to me," the man shouted; "I can't come to
+you. Tied here by the leg."
+
+It is not an easy thing to locate a sound in the open air, and
+though Mollie had had some practice in the course of her Guide work,
+it was only after several shouts on the man's part and experiments
+on hers that she at last found herself standing beside Mr. John
+Smith, who was sitting on the ground with one bootless leg stretched
+out before him.
+
+"I am glad to see you," he said to Mollie. "I have sprained my ankle
+rather badly, and was just wondering what to do next. There seemed
+to be nothing for it but to crawl all the way home, and the prospect
+was not pleasing."
+
+"I am glad to see you too," said Mollie. "I am lost."
+
+"Lost!" exclaimed the young man. "Oh no, you aren't. I have a
+compass, and it is not more than a couple of miles or so to Silver
+Fields, von Greusen's place. I'll show you how to use a compass, and
+you will be my good angel and go to Silver Fields and ask them to
+send a horse along, and I will be grateful to you for ever."
+
+"I know how to use a compass, thank you," said Mollie, feeling
+greatly relieved, "and I will go to Mr. von Greusen's place if you
+tell me where it is; but first I will bandage up your foot and make
+it feel easier. I have learnt First Aid. May I take that thing off
+your hat for a bandage?"--as she noticed the pith helmet and pugaree
+lying on the ground.
+
+"My pugaree? Good idea! I don't know what First Aid is precisely,
+but it sounds appropriate. Do you mean you can fix a bandage?"
+
+"Rather," said Mollie, comfortably conscious that she was a First-
+class Guide and a bright and shining light in this particular line.
+"How did you sprain your ankle? I suppose you--" she stopped short.
+She had almost said that she supposed he had tripped over an
+obstacle in a fit of loverishness. "I suppose your foot just went.
+That's what mine did."
+
+"I caught it in a rabbit-hole," he answered, "the floor of Australia
+seems to be perforated with them. Why didn't you coo-ee sooner?"
+
+"I did," Mollie answered, as she unwound the pugaree and took off
+her patient's sock, "I coo-eed ever so often--oh, dear me! that _is_
+a bad foot! I'm afraid you'll be laid up for ever so long. Why
+didn't _you_ coo-ee?"
+
+"I did," answered Mr. Smith, eyeing the badly swollen and
+discoloured ankle ruefully. "I coo-eed ever so often too. I suppose
+we mistook each other for magpies. Next time I'll try a good English
+shout. Now, what's to happen? D'ye mean to say that I'm to be stuck
+up in Silver Fields for goodness knows how long with only my own
+thoughts for company and nothing to do? Oh, ye gods and little
+fishes!" he groaned disconsolately.
+
+"I'm afraid so," Mollie replied sympathetically. "I sprained my
+ankle--" she was going to say "the other day" but remembered in
+time--"once in the holidays, and I had to lie on a sofa all day. It
+wasn't nearly so dull as I expected though," she ended with a little
+laugh. As they talked she had been skilfully bandaging the swollen
+ankle in her best style, which was a style not to be despised by
+anybody. "Now," she said, as she tucked in the end and fastened it
+firmly with her Tenderfoot brooch, "now you will be more
+comfortable. But you must keep quite still. I do wish you were not
+so far from home; you should not ride. If you do anything foolish
+now you may be lame all your life; that's what the doctor told me;
+he was most frightfully firm about it. Your wrist is bleeding--you
+have cut it."
+
+The young man turned back his shirt sleeve. "It is nothing. A
+handkerchief twisted round will do. You have done the bandage
+beautifully."
+
+Mollie arranged the handkerchief. As she did so her eyes fell upon a
+tattoo-mark, an anchor inside a true-lover's knot. It was an
+ordinary enough tattoo-mark, but the sight of it struck at Mollie
+for _she had seen it before_. The odd impression of last night,
+which she had forgotten in the various exigences of the situation,
+came rushing back into her mind. Who _did_ he remind her of? How
+could she possibly have seen that little mark before?
+
+"My name is John Smith," he said, looking up and finding her eyes
+fixed questioningly upon him. "I don't think we have met before?"
+
+"I saw you last night at the Campbell's," Mollie replied aloud
+(while to herself she added, "And where I saw you before that is
+what I should like to know more than anything else at this present
+moment"). "I am staying there. It was dark on the balcony and there
+were a lot of us children; you wouldn't notice me. My name is
+Mollie--oh, you simply must _not_ twist your leg about like that!
+Your ankle _may_ be broken; you don't know."
+
+He smiled; his eyes crinkled up and there was a something in the
+tilt of his mouth. Why was that smile so familiar? Was it the Prince
+of Wales? No, it was someone she knew much better than she knew the
+Prince of Wales. (Which wasn't saying very much after all.)
+
+"You are very cheery! So you were there, were you? I never heard
+such heavenly singing in my life. Von Greusen says that Mrs.
+Campbell has one of the most beautiful voices in South Australia,
+and I should say that he has the other. But it isn't only their
+voices, it's the way they sing, making you think of all the might-
+have-beens and ought-to-have-beens and never-will-bes--" he stopped,
+and sighed in a melancholy way, leaning his back against the tree
+behind him. "I think you had better be starting, Miss Polly. Neither
+of us will be the worse of getting home."
+
+"Mollie, not Polly. I wish you had not to be left alone. I will be
+as quick as I can. How shall I describe this place? I think I had
+better come back with the men."
+
+"No need for that. Tell them I'm by the creek on the way to the
+olive plantation. They'll know. I have a sister called Polly. I was
+thinking of her at that moment," he added, with another sigh. "I had
+a letter from her yesterday and she wants me to go back. The point
+is, shall I go or shall I not?"
+
+"I don't know, but I think I had better hurry," Mollie said. It had
+occurred to her that if _she_ "went back" with her usual abruptness,
+before she delivered her message, Mr. John Smith might be left in an
+awkward predicament.
+
+He handed over the compass with careful directions. She nodded her
+head, waved her hand at her distractingly perplexing new
+acquaintance, and set off. Soon her entire attention was absorbed in
+finding her way, for, although she had used a compass often enough
+when Guiding, an Australian forest was something quite new, and to
+her it seemed as trackless as the ocean, every part of it looked so
+precisely the same as every other part. Eventually, however, she
+found herself safely back on the cart-track, though nowhere within
+sight of the Fairy Dell. She decided to go straight home to the
+Campbell's house and ask there for help for Mr. John Smith. Mr. von
+Greusen would probably be out at this hour, and she felt shy of the
+big bearded men working about the place.
+
+Mamma was in, and heard her story with concern.
+
+"Of course he must come here," she exclaimed, with true Australian
+hospitality, unquestioning and ungrudging. "He must be properly
+nursed and fed." Mollie thought that Mamma looked rather pleased
+than otherwise at the prospect of nursing and feeding a good-looking
+young man newly out from home. Bridget was called, and between them
+all a room was got ready and made to look as homelike as possible.
+"Flowers and books," said Mrs. Campbell, "always make a room look
+pleasant. I wish I had some photographs. I wonder who his people
+are. We'll put up a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral, and this little
+water-colour of a Sussex village; they are not quite the same thing
+as his mother or sweetheart, but they will be better than nothing."
+She sighed as she looked at the water-colour. They were great people
+for sighing, Mollie thought. It must be rather miserable to be
+homesick so very, very far away from home!
+
+When Prudence and Grizzel, accompanied by the boys, all not a little
+anxious about Mollie, arrived at home for dinner they found not only
+the missing Mollie but also Mr. John Smith on the balcony. Mollie
+ran down the steps to meet them, and gave a highly coloured account
+of her adventures. Past differences were forgiven and forgotten, and
+after dinner they all assembled on the balcony again with the
+benevolent intention of devoting themselves to the entertainment of
+the interesting invalid.
+
+But Mrs. Campbell did not approve of this plan. "We are too many,"
+she said in her decided way. "Prudence and Mollie may stay; the rest
+of you must run away for the present. Grizzel can go for a walk with
+Bridget and Baby; I want a few things from the Store, and they can
+be brought up in the perambulator. The boys had better go up to Mr.
+von Greusen's and see about getting Mr. Smith's belongings brought
+here."
+
+"You might call at the Fairy Dell and get the Gordello," Prudence
+suggested--for after all she and Grizzel had made the new drink in a
+fit of remorse--"Mr. Smith will perhaps like to taste it."
+
+The family melted away, and Mamma with the two girls settled down to
+needlework. Mamma's kindly interest invited confidence under these
+pleasant circumstances, and it was not long before the young man was
+pouring his story into her sympathetic ears. Prudence listened
+spellbound. It was not often that one had romance brought to one's
+very door--by a hero with a sprained ankle too! Such a romantic
+affliction! But Mollie was too much preoccupied by that haunting
+likeness to listen properly to what the hero was saying, once she
+had ascertained the fact that Mr. Smith belonged to the Campbell's
+Time, and that therefore she could not possibly have met himself
+before; it must have been somebody extraordinarily like him. And
+yet--the number of her friends was not so very great that one could
+be totally forgotten. She tried not to think about it, but it stuck
+in the back of her brain in an irritating sort of way and refused to
+be forgotten.
+
+His story was not at all an uncommon one: a love-affair, a selection
+of angry parents, lack of money, eternal vows, and a young man in
+search of a fortune. He had been told that fortunes lay about loose
+in Australia.
+
+"Not that I mind working," he said. "I like work all right, but it's
+so slow, and we are getting older all the time. I rather fancied a
+vineyard; our parents are great on their cellars and might come
+round to a vineyard and wine. I spent some time in France before
+coming here, but it was hopeless. They won't look at a foreigner in
+their wine concerns. As a matter of fact I have some hopes of my own
+governor relenting. I am his only son, and he is getting tired of
+keeping me at arm's length. There's nothing really in the way; only
+he had another wife in view for me, and Margaret's father had
+another husband. _He_ is rather a cantankerous old party. Too much
+port wine is what is the matter with them both, that's my opinion;
+they're turning gouty."
+
+As Mr. John Smith talked he pulled his watch out of his pocket and
+sprung it open. In the back lay a tiny photograph.
+
+"That's Margaret," he said.
+
+The others bent over the faintly tinted portrait of a young girl,
+pretty and smiling, her wavy hair rippling on either side of a
+smooth brow. Mollie glanced at it absent-mindedly; the back of her
+brain, she felt, was moving to the front; in another moment it would
+be there.
+
+Mr. Smith looked affectionately at the pretty face. "That is my
+little girl," he repeated, "and I--I ought to tell you--you are so
+kind--my name is not really John Smith. I dropped my real name
+because I wanted to dodge my governor--teach him a lesson, you know,
+not to play fast and loose with his only son--poor old governor! I
+have written to him since I came to Silver Fields. My real name is--
+
+Suddenly Mollie began to laugh. It had come in a flash--the long
+chair, the bandaged foot on a foot-rest, the watch with its back
+open, the tattooed anchor and rope on a lean wrist, and above all a
+pair of dark eyes (so like Dick's) crinkled up in a kindly smile:
+"You don't blow hard enough, little Polly," someone was saying, "try
+again." The hair above the dark eyes was white, but Mollie knew.
+
+"It's so _funny_," she cried, as they all looked at her, Prudence
+anxiously inquiring if she had "got it again". "I'm all right, Prue,
+but it's so funny. _I_ know who you are," she laughed again, turning
+to Mr. Smith. "Your name isn't John Smith at all. You are poor dear
+Richard. Who was so active. With the gout. And you are--you are my--"
+
+"Hush, Mollie!" said Prue.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mollie sat up. She was still laughing. Aunt Mary stood beside her in
+hat and coat, her hands full of cardboard boxes from Buszard's.
+Grannie sat at the tea-table, and opposite her was old Mrs. Pell,
+who had put on her bonnet because it would soon be time for her to
+go. They all looked at Mollie, who continued to laugh.
+
+"It's nothing," she said. "It is only a fit of giggles. I have them
+sometimes."
+
+"Give the dear child her tea, Mary," said Grannie. "Her nerves are a
+little highly strung; her grandfather used to laugh just like that--
+poor dear Richard!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+The Aeronauts or The Fateful Stone
+
+
+"Aunt Mary, how old is Time?" asked Mollie.
+
+She was resting on her sofa in the garden, after her first attempt
+at a short walk. She had been wondering how her young grandpapa had
+got on with his sprained ankle, and longed to ask questions about
+him, but dared not venture even on the simplest. It was so easy to
+forget and ask too much. The day was rather hot, and the couch had
+been drawn into the shade of a great copper-beech. Mollie lay on her
+back, gazing up through the silky red foliage at the blue sky.
+Somewhere a thrush was singing, practising his flute-like phrases
+with conscientious care.
+
+"I think he must be trying for a scholarship," said Mollie. "How old
+is Time?" she repeated, bringing her gaze down from the tree-tops to
+Aunt Mary's hands, busy as usual with needlework.
+
+"How old is Time?" Aunt Mary echoed. "What do you mean exactly by
+Time?"
+
+"I mean, how long is it since days began--morning and afternoon and
+evening?"
+
+"Untold millions of years," her aunt answered. "I don't suppose that
+anyone could say exactly how many, and in any case when we speak of
+Time we mean Time on our own earth; what an astronomer would say I
+don't know."
+
+"How do you know that it is millions of years old?" Mollie asked.
+"In the Bible it says that the evening and the morning were the
+first day in the year 4004 B.C. That is only five thousand, nine
+hundred and twenty-four years ago."
+
+"You are asking terribly big questions," Aunt Mary said, with a
+smile. "It would take a long time to explain how men learnt to know
+the age of the world, and I am afraid I am hardly equal to the task.
+It is only about seventy years since geologists began to suspect
+that our earth was far older than they had supposed, I have some
+simple books which I think you could understand if you tried; and if
+you learn to take an interest in geology you need never be dull
+again as long as you live. You will find 'tongues in trees, books in
+the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything'."
+
+"That would be very nice," Mollie said politely but not
+enthusiastically; "but just now I only want to know how old Time is.
+Millions and millions of years," she repeated to herself rather
+dreamily. "If you took forty from millions and millions it wouldn't
+make any difference worth mentioning. It makes even Adam seem almost
+as near as last week. And this morning I said I hadn't time to darn
+a hole in my stocking. I wonder if Eve said she had no time. Were
+there any people before Adam, Aunt Mary?"
+
+Aunt Mary shook her head. "Ask the wise thrush," she said; "his
+ancestors are older than mine."
+
+"Are they really!" Mollie exclaimed. "Did that thrush's ever-so-
+great-grandfather sing in the Garden of Eden?"
+
+Aunt Mary only answered with a smile, and Mollie listened again to
+the thrush, her thoughts wandering back to the times of forty years
+ago. Quite a little time, she mused. No wonder they were so little
+different, considering all things, from our own. She had thought
+that the children of those days must be frightfully dull, and
+terribly strictly kept; but on the whole they were, in some ways,
+less dull--or more exciting--and certainly had more liberty, than
+the children of to-day. Perhaps, however, that was Australia, where
+there was so much more room than there was in England. She wondered
+how Dick and Jerry were getting on to-day, and wished for the
+hundredth time that she could see them and talk things over. They
+had each other to talk to, but she had no one.
+
+"Have you any diamonds, Aunt Mary?" she asked presently. "I should
+like to see some diamonds; and rubies and emeralds and topazes and
+opals and pearls and amethysts and sapphires, and all the precious
+stones you've got."
+
+"Bless my soul, Mollie! Do you think I am the Queen of Sheba!" Aunt
+Mary exclaimed. "Grannie has some old-fashioned jewellery locked
+away in a drawer, but the family diamonds are nothing to go to law
+about. The only diamond I possess," she went on, "is a green diamond
+in a ring that someone gave me long, long ago. Long ago," she
+repeated with a sigh, letting her work drop into her lap and gazing
+at something that Mollie could not see, for it was the distant past.
+
+Mollie gave a violent start. A green diamond! In a ring! Long, long
+ago. How very extraordinary! She dared not ask any questions, but
+she examined her aunt with new and critical interest, from the
+shining coils of smooth brown hair to the slim ankles and neat
+buckled shoes. No, she decided, that hair could never have been red
+and ringletty; besides, Grizzel's eyes were blue and round like a
+kitten's, while Aunt Mary's were dark brown and long-shaped. Very
+pretty eyes, Mollie suddenly discovered. Also, Aunt Mary was too
+young. Forty years ago Grizzel was eight or nine years old, which
+would make her nearly fifty now. Mollie paused for a moment to
+picture to herself a fifty-year-old Grizzel, but, failing utterly in
+the attempt, she continued her meditations on her aunt. Aunt Mary
+was certainly a considerable distance from that venerable age.
+Mollie wondered again why she had never married, and who had given
+her that ring. She sighed impatiently. She wished that she was not
+bound down by that promise; but she was, hard and fast. It would be
+better not to think about the green diamond just now. When she got
+back to forty years ago she would keep her eyes open; it was not at
+all unlikely, considering all things, that Aunt Mary had had an
+Australian lover, and it might be possible to do a kind act somehow
+or other. What the effect would be if 1920 meddled about with the
+affairs of 1880 Mollie had ceased worrying over. It was altogether
+too puzzling.
+
+Aunt Mary remained a little absent-minded all the morning, and when
+the time came for Mollie to go to sleep that afternoon she could
+hear a new tone in Aunt Mary's voice when she began to sing:
+
+  "O bay of Dublin! my heart you're troublin',
+  Your beauty haunts me like a fevered dream,
+  Like frozen fountains that the sun sets bubblin
+  My heart's blood warms when I but hear your name;
+  And never till this life pulse ceases,
+  My earliest thought you'll cease to be;
+  Oh! there's no one here knows how fair that place is,
+  And no one cares how dear it is to me!"
+
+"If Aunt Mary goes on like this, Prue will certainly find me howling
+my eyes out," Mollie said to herself. "Talk of might-have-beens and
+never-will-bes! Grandpapa should hear his own daughter singing! Why
+did I go and mention green diamonds to her!" She shut her eyes tight
+to keep the tears from falling. The plaintive tune went on, and when
+a small soft hand crept into her own her cheeks were wet. She kept
+her eyes closed and held tight to the little hand!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She was standing in a wide, brick-floored veranda with a steeply
+sloping roof. The open sides were wreathed with morning-glories,
+their deep-blue petals wide-spreading to the early sun. Painted
+tubs, full of scarlet and purple fuchsias, stood in a row beside the
+railing; coco-nut matting, rough and brown, lay in strips across the
+red brick floor, and at either end of the veranda stood a deal
+table. One was covered with books, toys, and work-baskets. At the
+other sat Bridget, shelling peas. She was singing:
+
+  "How often when at work I'm sittin',
+  An' musin' sadly on the days of yore,
+  I think I see my Katey knittin',
+  An' the children playin' by the cabin door;
+  I think I see the neighbours' faces
+  All gathered round, their long-lost friend to see,
+  Oh! though no one here knows how fair that place is,
+  Heaven knows how dear my poor home was to me."
+
+As she sang the last word she lifted the corner of her apron to dry
+her eyes, and saw Mollie.
+
+"Is it yourself, Miss Mollie, or is it your ghost? May the Lord look
+sideways on me ould plaid shawl! You gave me a start then, for 'twas
+only this minute I looked to see an' there was no one there at all."
+
+"It's me," said Mollie, swallowing down a few last tears and
+wondering if she was speaking the truth--perhaps it _was_ her ghost!
+"Where's everybody?"
+
+"They're all dressin' themselves for the balloonin', an' may the
+Lord preserve Master Hugh an' keep his bones from breakin'. 'Tis a
+temptin' o' Providence an' his mother sailin' on the salt seas, poor
+soul. The way the death-watch has been tickin' on me this wake past
+is something cruel."
+
+"What's the ballooning?" Mollie began, but before Bridget could
+answer Prudence appeared at the house door, dressed in festive pink
+muslin and a white hat wreathed with rosebuds.
+
+"Come along, Mollie," she said, "and don't listen to Bridget
+croaking. If I died every time she hears my death-watch tick, or
+sees my shroud in a candle, there would be a whole cemetery full of
+my graves by this time. There's a yellow muslin frock for you."
+
+They had reached the girls' bedroom, which Mollie recognized as the
+first of the rooms she had slept in. They were back in the house
+with Hugh's tree and the yellow-carpeted garden. She looked
+admiringly at the pretty muslin frock on the bed. It was white,
+powdered over with tiny dots of pale yellow, and made with filmy
+flounces reaching to the waist; a frilled fichu, or "cross-over" as
+Prue called it, came over the front of the little bodice, falling
+slightly below the waist and tied behind with pale-yellow ribbons. A
+wide white hat was wreathed with primroses and green leaves. It was
+indeed a charming frock, and so modern that Mollie thought she might
+have worn it at home without anyone being surprised at anything
+except her unusual smartness. Prudence and Grizzel wore dresses
+fashioned in precisely the same way, but Prue's muslin was sprigged
+with pink rosebuds, while Grizzel's dots were green.
+
+"Come along, my rainbow," said Papa. "If we are late we won't get a
+good place."
+
+They walked down the cypress-bordered path of Mollie's first visit,
+and joined the stream of people going along the road, like
+themselves, to see the balloon ascent. Mollie felt very gay and
+festive; everybody feminine wore light frocks, the sun was bright
+but not too hot, the grass was green, and the whole countryside was
+frothed with almond-blossom, white and pink. Birds flew briskly
+about, indifferent to balloons, and horses with shining chestnut
+coats trotted along the well-kept road, lifting their slim ankles
+and polished heels in an elegant way very different from the gait of
+London cab-horses.
+
+A balloon ascent was always a thrilling sight, Prudence explained,
+but the particular thrill about this one was that Hugh was going up.
+The aeronaut was a friend of Papa's, and, Mamma being on her way
+home to England, it had not been difficult to persuade easygoing
+Papa to give his consent. Indeed, there was nothing that he would
+have liked better than to go up himself, but Mr. Ferguson had shaken
+his head over fifteen stone of useless passenger.
+
+"If we could throw you out a pound at a time you would be most
+welcome," he had said; "but you must wait a bit, Professor; the day
+will come when we shall not have to count every pound."
+
+When they reached the field they found a deeply interested crowd
+already collected, and Papa had some difficulty in getting his
+rainbow into a good position. The huge balloon towered up far above
+them, its striped smoke-coloured sides gleaming under the netted
+mesh as it swayed with every breath of wind. The wicker car looked
+very small and frail.
+
+"It's not so small as it looks," Prue said to Mollie. "We were in it
+yesterday. It is nearly as big as my bedroom, and the sides reach up
+to Hugh's shoulder; he couldn't fall out unless he did it on
+purpose. There are dear little cubby-holes and all sorts of cute
+fixings. Its name is the _Kangaroo_. I do wish I could go up too,
+but Papa and Mr. Ferguson simply wouldn't hear of it. Girls are
+never allowed to do anything."
+
+"Aren't you nervous?" Mollie asked. "Suppose it suddenly burst when
+it was ever so high. How high does it go?"
+
+"Mr. Ferguson has been up five miles, but he is only going up one
+to-day. They won't be very long away."
+
+"You would be just as badly smashed if you fell one mile as if you
+fell five, I should think," said Mollie, with a shudder.
+
+"It isn't falling that they think about," Prue explained, "When you
+get very high you can't breathe, and you have all sorts of horrid
+feelings. Once Mr. Ferguson fainted, and if the man with him hadn't
+pulled the stopper thing out with his teeth they'd both have been
+killed."
+
+"Why teeth?" asked Mollie.
+
+"Because his hands were frozen, and he couldn't use them," answered
+Prue. "They'll be starting soon; they are going on board--look,
+there's Hugh!"
+
+Mollie saw a small grey-clad figure climbing into the car. He was
+followed by two men, one tall and the other rather short. As they
+climbed over the rails the great balloon swayed and trembled--it
+looked far more dangerous than a nice substantial aeroplane, Mollie
+thought; and there was no control, they simply flew up and were
+blown hither and thither according to the will of the winds. Suppose
+they were blown against something and got a great rip in the side!
+
+"I don't know how you _can_," she said to Prue. "If it were Dick--
+where are Dick and Jerry? Haven't they come?"
+
+"Here we are, old bean, at your elbow. My word, wouldn't I like to
+be going up too!"
+
+"Same here. Some chaps have all the luck!" groaned Jerry.
+
+Prudence shook her head. "Mr. Ferguson would never take more than
+one boy. Two might begin larking, and you simply must not lark in a
+balloon."
+
+Dick thought of a joke about larks and balloons, but decided that it
+was not a really first-class joke and merely shook an accusatory
+head at boys and their reprehensible ways.
+
+[Illustration: THEY STOOD AND WATCHED THE _KANGAROO_ FOR SOME TIME]
+
+The ring of men who held down the balloon were preparing to let go
+the ropes; the band began to play, the men in the balloon took off
+their caps and waved farewell, people cheered--and the _Kangaroo_
+was off. She rose swiftly and buoyantly, remaining almost
+perpendicular until she was caught by a southwest current of air and
+sailed away towards the hills. As she rose the children could see
+Hugh at the edge of the car, waving his handkerchief.
+
+It was very exciting. They stood and watched the _Kangaroo_ for some
+time, but her progress was slow, and Papa remarked that they could
+see her just as well from the street as from the field, now that she
+was near the clouds. He looked at his watch:
+
+"There is just time to go and have some lunch before your dinner.
+What would you say to cocoa and cream-cakes at Bauermann's?"
+
+This suggestion cheered away the left-behindish feeling that they
+all experienced as they watched that distant pear-shaped object
+floating in the sky. As they walked along the road it was impossible
+to keep their eyes and thoughts from following the balloon, so that
+conversation was desultory, until Mollie thought she saw a bad
+wobble and gave a little scream.
+
+"You really need not be so nervous," Prue said, catching her by the
+arm. "Mr. Ferguson has been up hundreds of times, he won't let Hugh
+down. Bridget read Hugh's fortune in his tea-cup last night and says
+he is going to die when he is eighty-three-and-a-half; I can't think
+why she has begun to hear his death-watch tick already. And
+besides--don't you believe in Fate? If it is your fate to fall from a
+balloon and be killed, you'll be killed that way; there's no use
+trying not to be."
+
+"You couldn't be if you never went up in a balloon," said Mollie.
+
+"Then it wouldn't be your fate," Prudence answered.
+
+Mollie could not think of a suitable reply at the moment and was
+silent.
+
+"That's not all," Grizzel added. "Hugh has got my green diamond with
+him for luck. Bridget says that my diamond is the Luck of the
+Campbells, and will always bring good luck to the person that wears
+it, like a four-leaved shamrock. So I made Hugh take it."
+
+This remark reminded the others of the diamond-mine, and Dick,
+Jerry, and Mollie became eager for news of that adventure. It had
+turned out fairly well; they had not as yet made a fortune, but on
+the strength of their prospects Mr. Fraser had encouraged Papa to
+send Mamma and Baby for a trip home, and to add several comforts to
+the household, one of which was the broad veranda at the back of the
+house, in which Mollie had found herself that morning.
+
+"We live in it by day, and some of us sleep in it by night," Prue
+said. "You shall sleep in a hammock to-night, Mollie."
+
+After a feast of cocoa and cream-cakes at Bauermann's they got home
+just in time for a dinner of twice-laid and Uncle Tom's pudding, to
+which even Dick and Jerry could not do justice.
+
+"It's my favourite dinner, too," sighed Prudence. "It's a strange
+thing that one day you get too much and another day too little. To-
+morrow there will be no Bauermann's and most likely dinner will be
+boiled mutton and tapioca pudding."
+
+The afternoon passed rather slowly. Hugh might be back about five
+o'clock, and they were too anxious to hear how he had got on to be
+able to settle down to any occupation. They played croquet until all
+their tempers were hopelessly lost, even Prudence accusing Mollie of
+cheating. As if a Guide ever cheated under any circumstances
+whatsoever! After each girl in turn had thrown down her mallet and
+declared that she wouldn't play, Dick swiftly defeated Jerry, the
+party recovered its tempers, and they were sitting down to play "I
+met a One-horned Lady always Genteel" when the garden-gate clicked
+and Hugh appeared.
+
+Now Dick and Jerry, each in his own mind, had suspected that Hugh
+would come back from his trip full of "swank", and each had decided
+that gently and politely, but very firmly, he would squash the
+swanker. But there was no sign of the conquering hero about Hugh. He
+came slowly up the garden path towards them, gloom and depression
+showing in every step that he took, and still more upon his face as
+he drew near.
+
+They looked at him expectantly, but he stood silently beside them,
+his shoulders stooping as though a load of care sat upon them, his
+usually clear eyes heavy and clouded, and the corners of his mouth
+turned down as if he had made up his mind never to smile again.
+
+"What's up?" asked Jerry at last. "Did the balloon bust, and you the
+sole survivor?"
+
+"Didn't my diamond bring you luck after all?" Grizzel questioned
+anxiously.
+
+"Sick, old bean?" inquired Dick sympathetically.
+
+"I think you'd better have tea right away," Prudence said, laying a
+motherly little hand on her brother's arm.
+
+"If he's got something bad to tell he'd better tell it," said
+Mollie. "Nothing cures care like giving it air."
+
+Hugh threw himself on the grass, hugged his legs with his arms, and,
+resting his chin on his knees, stared before him in stony silence.
+
+"Spit it out, old bus," Dick adjured him, "If you are in a scrape we
+are with you to a man--aren't we?" he asked the others.
+
+A chorus of agreement brought a flicker of light into the gloom of
+Hugh's face.
+
+"I have been the biggest ass in the world," he said. "If there is a
+bigger it would comfort me to meet him."
+
+Two brown hands were promptly outstretched, but Hugh shook his head:
+"Wait till you hear." He paused for a moment, looked nervously from
+side to side and then behind him:
+
+"I'm a murderer. Probably I shall be hanged. Unless I poison myself
+first."
+
+"Hugh!" Prudence exclaimed sharply, "don't make these horrible
+jokes. You know how Mamma hates them."
+
+"It isn't a joke, worse luck," Hugh groaned; "it's beastly true.
+Thank goodness Mamma is out of the way. Perhaps it can be hushed up
+so that she will never know the truth about the way I died."
+
+A look of consternation settled upon every face; whatever Hugh had
+done, it was plain that he was exceedingly unhappy.
+
+"Tell us," Jerry commanded briefly.
+
+Hugh sat up. "I may as well," he agreed dejectedly. "You'd better
+hear it from me than from some old policeman. I suppose one will be
+stalking up the path soon." He was silent again for a minute, and
+then started once more:
+
+"It was this way. When we went up first it was perfectly glorious--
+you never can imagine how lovely Adelaide looks from the air, with
+the hills round and the sea in the distance and almond-blossom all
+over the place. Oh--if only this thing hadn't happened I could tell
+you all sorts of things, but now I can't think of anything. It was
+near the end. I was awfully keen on trying an experiment--two
+experiments in fact. I wanted to see how near I could hit a given
+spot if I aimed at it with a stone, and I wanted to see how much the
+stone would deflect in falling. Perhaps it's only one experiment
+really, but it struck me as being two at the time. You see, if
+Australia ever goes to war we might want to shoot from balloons, or
+one might drop a ball of explosives with a fuse attached or
+something. I thought about it when that Russian scare was on, but I
+never thought I'd get the chance to try. So I got a good, smooth,
+round stone, nine-and-a-half ounces, and wrapped it up in a
+handkerchief and took it up. I knew a good place to aim at--the tree
+in Mr. Macgregor's Burnt Oak field. I knew the field was empty; it
+is being ploughed up for some experiment that Mr. Macgregor wants to
+try--blow all experiments! And to-day he gave his men a holiday to
+come and see the balloon. We were about fifteen hundred feet up and
+going slowly. I could see the oak and its shadow quite plainly. So I
+let the stone drop."
+
+Hugh paused again and groaned.
+
+"Go on," said somebody.
+
+"No one noticed what I had done, but something or other made Mr.
+Ferguson start talking about how dangerous it was to chuck things
+over carelessly, though it seems to me that in Jules Verne they
+spend half their time chucking sandbags about. I asked him how about
+a stone weighing half a pound, and he said it would fall half a mile
+in twelve and a half seconds, and if it hit anyone on the head that
+person would be as dead as if he had got a bullet through him. I
+felt a bit sick, but I was glad that field had been empty. We came
+down soon after that, and I cut off to Burnt Oak field to look for
+my stone." Hugh stopped short.
+
+"Go on," said the others.
+
+"It wasn't there, nor anywhere round; and I _knew_ it must have
+dropped on that field."
+
+"But," said Jerry, "if it hit the earth at that speed it would bury
+itself ever so deep. You could not possibly see it."
+
+"I thought of that," said Hugh, "so I looked for the hole, and I
+found it. About thirty feet from the tree, which was a good hit
+considering. I could soon learn to aim well--that is, if I'm not
+hanged or sent to prison for life. Oh--Well, I found the hole, and
+beside it I found--"
+
+No one dared to ask a question. Hugh remained silent till it was
+almost more than they could bear.
+
+"Blood!" he whispered at last.
+
+"Jiminy! Is that all!" exclaimed Dick. "I thought you were going to
+say a dead body. If the body got up and walked away it couldn't have
+been so very dead. How much blood? Were there any footmarks about?"
+
+"That part of the field hadn't been ploughed, and the ground was
+rather hard, covered with grass the cattle had been cropping. There
+were some stones in a little pile, but my stone wasn't among them. I
+looked at those stones--by George, I looked at them! They were
+splashed with blood--Then I got sick, and then had to skedaddle
+because someone was calling me."
+
+"I am _sure_ it will turn out all right; you had the lucky diamond,"
+Grizzel said consolingly.
+
+"That makes it worse," said Hugh, groaning again. "I tied the
+diamond up with the stone and forgot to take it out."
+
+"Oh, _Hugh_!" exclaimed Prudence, more perturbed by this disaster
+than by the hypothetical murder, "how _could_ you be so careless?"
+
+"It doesn't matter," Grizzel persisted, with cheerful calm, "that
+diamond brings luck. It has had one miracle, and I expect it will
+have another. It will come back. Very likely the dead man will bring
+it back himself."
+
+"It will come back all right," said Hugh, "because the ring has
+Grizzel's name inside it, and, seeing that mine is the same on the
+handkerchief, the police will have a jolly good clue to start on. If
+the person was _not_ hit and steals the diamond he'll take good care
+not to show himself. Then the diamond will be gone, but I'll give
+Grizzel mine. I'll spend my bank money on getting a ring made. Oh--
+if I only knew! If I only knew what was going to happen I shouldn't
+mind so much. It's waiting for that bobby to turn up that gives me
+the horrors." He looked over his shoulder as he spoke, with a shiver
+of anticipation.
+
+"It sounds to me a bit fishy, you know," said Jerry, with a
+thoughtful frown. "How do you know that the hole you saw was made by
+your stone? It might have been there already."
+
+"Because it was fresh, and the earth round was freshly thrown up;
+and some of my handkerchief was lying beside it."
+
+The boys looked grave. This did sound rather serious.
+
+"But," said Mollie, "the stone could not have buried itself in a
+hole and hit a person so that the person was killed at the same
+time. If it went down into a hole it did not hit anyone."
+
+"I never thought of that," said Hugh, cheering up for the first
+time. "Neither it could; but there was the blood," he added
+despondently, "pints of it. I never thought anything could bleed so
+much. Well--I shall know before very long one way or the other, for
+either some news will turn up or the diamond will stay away."
+
+"The best thing you can do now is to have some tea," said Prudence,
+"then you will feel better and we can plan what to do."
+
+Things certainly looked less black after tea. Hugh, beginning to
+hope for Grizzel's miracle, decided to develop some photographs of
+the ballooners which he had taken on the previous day. "I promised
+Mr. Ferguson to have some prints ready for him to-morrow," he said,
+"so I may as well begin. If the bobby comes you can call me."
+
+But everyone wanted to watch the developing process. Hugh's dark-
+room was a roomy lean-to shed, built by himself and well equipped
+with shelves, sink, and taps. It would hold six people at a pinch.
+
+"No, I can't have you all," Hugh said, "you wouldn't all see at
+once, and it is too much of a crowd. I'll take two at a time. Dick
+and Prue to begin with."
+
+The remaining three settled themselves within sight of the garden
+gate, and discussed the various features of Hugh's adventure.
+
+"I don't believe it is half so bad as he thinks," Jerry said,
+"because it stands to reason that a dead man could not get up and
+walk away, especially not across a ploughed field. I doubt if even a
+man who had lost several pints of blood could walk very far. And if
+he had been _carried_ off, there would have been a fuss, and the
+ballooners would have been tackled at once--in fact, I can't think
+why they weren't. I think it looks rather bad for Grizzel's diamond;
+worse for the diamond than for the man. I wonder how fast the
+balloon was going. How fast does a balloon fly?"
+
+"Somewhere from eight to thirty-six miles an hour, according to the
+wind, Jules Verne says," Grizzel answered.
+
+"Eight miles an hour! My hat! Fancy crawling through the air at
+eight--"
+
+There was a sound at the garden gate and the three jumped to their
+feet. A young man walked up the broad path between the cypress
+trees, striking across the grass when he saw the children. He was
+not a policeman, having indeed a very kind and cheerful expression,
+which he was trying, not very successfully, to hide under a severe
+frown.
+
+"Does anyone named Grizzel Campbell live in this house?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, me," Grizzel answered, turning a little pale.
+
+"You!" exclaimed the young man, looking with some astonishment at
+the small figure before him, with its tumbled red curls. "I don't
+suppose _you_ are the owner of a--" he broke off uncertainly.
+
+"She is the owner of a green diamond in a ring, if that is what you
+wish to know," Jerry spoke up.
+
+"What on earth is a kid like you doing with a magnificent diamond
+ring?" the young man asked, forgetting to frown and letting everyone
+see quite plainly what a nice face he really had.
+
+"Oh--have you got my ring? Has there been a miracle?" Grizzel cried,
+clutching at the young man's arm.
+
+"I have got the ring, and there has been a miracle sure enough," he
+answered rather grimly. "I suppose that Mr. Hugh Campbell is your
+brother. Where is he?"
+
+"He's here all right," Jerry answered, "but would you mind telling
+us what happened before I call him? Whatever he did he's jolly cut
+up about it, and if it was anything very bad I'd like to--to prepare
+him a bit, you know. He went to look for his stone and got the
+fright of his life when he found his hank and the blood."
+
+"Blood!" the young man ejaculated, with a puzzled frown. "What
+blood?"
+
+"He said the ground was soaked in blood. All the stones were red. He
+thinks that the person he hit must have lost pints of blood."
+
+The young man threw back his head and laughed--a big, reassuring
+laugh which brought some colour into the three pale and anxious
+faces turned up to his. "Blood! I see! No, it was not so bad as all
+that, it only _might_ have been. It was not blood, it was only--but
+I'd better begin at the beginning and tell you what happened. I was
+sitting in Macgregor's Burnt Oak field, working at--well, a little
+experiment I am interested in, when I saw the balloon had come right
+over. Of course I had been watching it, but for a bit I was absorbed
+in my experiment and had not looked up. I looked up then and was
+staring hard, when suddenly, before I could say Jack Robinson, a
+whacking stone came hurtling down and cleared my head by less than a
+foot. If it had hit me--by Jove! I'd have tried the last and biggest
+experiment before this!"
+
+"A foot is a pretty good miss," said Jerry, a look of immense relief
+spreading over his face. "I know a chap who had a parting cut in his
+hair with a bullet; that's what _I_ call a narrow shave. That's what
+he calls it too," Jerry added, with a grin.
+
+"No doubt he does. My shave was narrow enough for me, thank you. It
+all but knocked my precious experiment into the middle of next week.
+But what I want to know is why Hugh Campbell throws diamond rings
+about the country. If the stone hadn't plopped into the middle of
+my--my little game--which was almost another miracle when you
+consider the size of the field--the ring would have been lost for
+ever."
+
+"It's a miraculous ring," Grizzel explained, "and it brings luck. I
+expect you'll be ever so lucky now. But how did you know where to
+look for Hugh?" she added rather anxiously. Mr. Ferguson would not
+be pleased, to put it mildly, if he knew how nearly Hugh had
+involved him in a tragedy.
+
+"I know your father," the young man replied, "he once did me a good
+turn. So I knew where to look for the owner of the handkerchief
+without troubling Mr. Ferguson."
+
+"But what was that mush if it wasn't blood?" asked Jerry.
+
+"That? Oh--that was merely my little experiment; that is my secret
+for the present, and I trust you not to mention it. But no one has
+told me why your brother chucked a diamond ring out of the balloon."
+
+"It was a mistake; he was trying experiments too," Grizzel
+explained. "But, please, may I go and tell him that he isn't a
+murderer? He is expecting to be hanged every minute, and it makes
+him feel perfectly miserable. But I was sure that my ring would
+bring him luck."
+
+Grizzel sped off on her mission. She knocked at the dark-room door.
+"Please put an ear at the keyhole--I have important news."
+
+An ear was promptly at her disposal. She did not ask whose, but went
+on:
+
+"The murdered man has come, and he isn't in the least dead. And his
+blood wasn't blood, only his experiment, and he's got my ring. He is
+a nice man, and he is forgiving Hugh as hard as he can, and there
+were two miracles, and I told you so!"
+
+There was a momentary silence within, and then a glad shout. Dick
+began to sing "God save the King", which seemed less appropriate
+when he remembered that the sovereign of the moment was a queen; but
+no one noticed, and the main point was that someone was saved. A few
+minutes later the dark-room party emerged, Hugh very pale and shaky
+as he went to meet his supposed victim. Indeed, for a moment he was
+incapable of speech, and Jerry, who knew only too well what it felt
+like to have a lump sticking in his throat just when he wanted to be
+most manly and soldier-like, filled up what would have been an
+awkward pause by saying anything that came into his head until Hugh
+had recovered himself.
+
+"I've had a lesson," he began, as he shook hands with the young man,
+whose name they now learnt was Desmond O'Rourke. "I am awfully
+sorry--"
+
+"That's all right," Mr. O'Rourke interrupted, "we all have to learn
+lessons now and then--I've learnt some myself--at least I hope I
+have. How are the photographs turning out?"
+
+"Very well, thank you. Would you like to come and see them? Mr.
+Ferguson's is the best portrait I have done yet." Hugh recovered
+from his emotion as he spoke, but he was still very pale.
+
+Mr. O'Rourke accepted the invitation with alacrity. "We can exchange
+experiences," he said. "I am curious to know what the experiment was
+that so nearly bowled me out. But first I must return the diamond to
+its owner." He drew the ring out of an inner pocket and held it out
+to Grizzel. As the diamond met the golden glow of the fading day its
+green rays gleamed and sparkled. "One might believe it was alive!"
+Mr. O'Rourke exclaimed. "I never saw anything like it. You kids
+ought not to have a jewel like that to play pitch-and-toss with;
+someone should keep it for you."
+
+"I wear it round my neck," said Grizzel, unfastening the neckband of
+her overall and showing a slender chain of finely wrought gold. She
+took it off and slung the ring on.
+
+"I have one almost as good," Hugh observed, as they watched Grizzel,
+"but mine is not set yet; perhaps I'll have it made into a ring some
+day. Mamma says I should keep it till I want an engagement ring--"
+
+  "O bay o' Dublin, my heart you're troublin',"
+
+Mollie gave a violent start--but it was only Bridget singing in the
+kitchen.
+
+Mr. O'Rourke turned his head and listened. "Who comes from Dublin?"
+he asked.
+
+"It's Bridget, our nurse when Baby is here and our cook just now,"
+Prudence answered. "She's feeling homesick. She does sometimes."
+
+"So do I," said Mr. O'Rourke. "It's a long time since I've seen the
+bay o' Dublin. I must shake hands with Bridget."
+
+Mollie gazed earnestly at Mr. O'Rourke. Was _he_ Aunt Mary's long-
+ago lover? No--he was too old. He must be twenty-two at least. But
+she felt almost sure that _somehow_ he had something to do with that
+romance.
+
+As they stood at the white gate later on, saying good-bye, their new
+friend pulled a round white stone out of one of his many pockets.
+"Shall I keep this or shall I give it to you?" he asked Hugh.
+
+There was a curious silence as the children gathered round to gaze
+at the innocent-looking missile in Mr. O'Rourke's hand. It was
+little the worse of its adventure--slightly chipped and scratched,
+and on one side an ominous red stain which made Hugh shiver and turn
+pale again, as it reminded him how nearly his thoughtlessness had
+cost a life.
+
+"Give it to me," he said at last. "I will write the date on it, and
+if it doesn't remind me to think twice, nothing will, and I will
+_deserve_ to be hanged."
+
+"Very well," agreed Mr. O'Rourke, "only remember that the red stain
+is only what I told you it was."
+
+"I'll remember," said Hugh, holding the stone in his hand and
+looking gravely down at it, "but I won't forget that it _might_ have
+been what I thought it was."
+
+Grizzel's solemn round eyes went from one to the other during this
+transaction. "Is that what it means in books when it says, 'marked
+with a white stone'?" she asked Hugh.
+
+"It _is_ a sort of milestone," Hugh answered thoughtfully, "and it
+will mark a new start for me. It ought to have your name on as well
+as mine," he added, looking up at Mr. O'Rourke. "Perhaps it means a
+new mile for you too. You can't tell."
+
+The young man laughed: "You make me feel as if it were my tombstone;
+you are all so solemn. Let me see a smile before I go."
+
+A nice white smile flashed round the company, but Hugh's eyes
+remained thoughtful as he watched the young Irishman walk away down
+the leafy road.
+
+After all the emotions of that exciting day Hugh was tired, so next
+morning found the children sitting quietly in the broad veranda.
+Prudence busied herself with sewing; Grizzel sat at the table
+happily absorbed in painting a spray of wattle to send to Mamma. She
+had placed it in a tall, slender vase of Venetian glass, pale yellow
+flecked with gold. Hugh lay on the floor, his chin in the hollow of
+his hands, and his feet alternately tapping the red bricks and
+waving in the air, as he contemplated a small steam-engine which he
+had been putting through its paces. Mollie, Dick, and Jerry sat on
+the veranda steps, the boys printing photographs, while Mollie idly
+played with the trailing garlands of morning-glory and traveller's
+joy which hung around her. Between the blossoming almond trees she
+could see golden splashes of wattle in the field beyond. At her feet
+a mass of big Russian violets boldly lifted their heads above their
+leaves, and an acacia, which overshadowed the veranda, was dropping
+milky petals on the path. Mollie knew all the sweet scents by name
+now. It was queer, she thought, how the seasons came slipping round,
+each bringing its own fruit and flowers--here in Australia in Prue's
+Time, and there in Chauncery in her own Time. She turned her head
+and stared at the shabby old grandfather clock which stood in a
+corner of the veranda. For forty years, she thought, its pendulum
+would slowly swing, till it said "How d'ye do" to the ticking clock
+in Grannie's morning-room. Forty years was a long time to look
+forward to.
+
+"Jolly nice smells here," Dick remarked. "How ripping the almond
+blossom looks in the sunshine. We've got an almond tree in our
+backyard, and once there was an almond on it."
+
+"There are thousands of almonds here," Prue said, pausing in her
+work for a moment and gazing dreamily at the delicate outline of
+almond branches against the sky. "They are nicest when they are
+green, but I must say they do give you dreadful pains. I wonder why
+so many nice things leave a pain. Music does too--and even one's
+best friends sometimes."
+
+"Do you eat your best friends boiled up with green almonds to the
+tune of 'Good-bye for ever--good-bye, good-bye'?" Dick inquired.
+
+They laughed. "There's an old gentleman come to live next door,"
+Prudence continued, taking up her sewing again, "who watches us
+through a telescope sometimes, and when he sees us in the green-
+almond trees he writes to Papa. He says it is for our good, old
+telltale. Once, though, he took us into his library and showed us
+some beautiful fossils. He said they were as old as Moses, and one
+of them might be a million years old. It was a fan-shell, quite
+whole and pretty. Fancy a million years! I wonder what the world
+will be like in another million years."
+
+"Bust," said Dick briefly.
+
+They laughed again and then were silent. Mollie looked round at the
+little group and thought how easy it was to be good when one had
+nice things to do and plenty of time and room to do them in. "Where
+is Miss Hilton?" she asked, "and where is Laddie? And why aren't you
+at school this time? How do you ever learn enough to pass your
+exams?"
+
+"Miss Hilton is housekeeper while Mamma is away," Prudence answered,
+"and she hasn't much time for lessons. Laddie is dead. He was
+poisoned. We couldn't bear to have another dog. Papa doesn't like
+exams. He likes us to be out all the time and not to stoop over
+books. He says we can 'find tongues in trees, books in the running
+brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything'."
+
+Mollie gave a little jump. The very words Aunt Mary had quoted that
+morning! There was certainly _something_ queer somewhere!
+
+"What a jolly kind of father to have," Dick exclaimed. "I wish my
+good parent held these views. His are quite otherwise. He believes
+in any amount of stooping over books, though I am always pointing
+out to him that it isn't the chaps who swot over books that turn
+into Generals and things in the end."
+
+"When Mamma comes home Grizzel and I are going to school." Prudence
+said regretfully. "I know we shall hate it, but I suppose we must
+learn grammar and geography some time." She sighed at the
+distressing prospect before her.
+
+Mollie smiled as she wondered what school would make of Grizzel. She
+looked at Hugh, absorbed in some great new idea. What would he be
+like in forty years. In Chauncery Time he must now be fifty-four.
+Were there then _two_ Hughs? And if two, why not twenty? Or
+hundreds, for that matter, like the films of a cinematograph.
+Perhaps everyone had a sort of film-picture running off all the
+time, and some day, before those million years had passed, a way
+would be found to develop them. It would not be much more wonderful
+than wireless and flying and all those things that looked impossible
+to people in this Time. Mollie began to think of London, and of home
+in North Kensington, and then felt a sudden longing for her mother
+and Jean and the little ones--for all the familiar ways of home and
+school. This place was lovely, and the children were perfect dears,
+but it would be nice to feel a hockey-stick in her hand again--and
+she _should_ like to see her own comfortable mother. In fact, she
+felt homesick!
+
+"A balloon is all very well," Hugh said, "so far as it goes." He
+rolled round on to his back, clasping his hands under his head and
+staring up at the white clouds over which he had flown yesterday.
+"But it doesn't go far _enough_. It will never be much use until we
+learn to steer. You have to go whichever way the wind chooses, which
+may be exactly the way you don't want to go. I can't see myself how
+one could ever steer without machinery, and to carry that weight
+you'd have to have a balloon the size of a mountain."
+
+"There's wings," said Prudence, "like Hiram Brown."
+
+"What's the good of wings that let you drop the moment you try to
+fly with them. Hiram Brown is as dead as a door nail with his wings.
+No, wings fastened on _that_ way will never work. Our internal
+machinery isn't made like birds'." As he spoke a parrot flew
+overhead, its brilliant wings flashing in the sunlight and then
+becoming apparently motionless as it swooped down towards the house.
+Hugh's eyes followed it intently, and presently he rolled over again
+and resumed his study of the steam-engine.
+
+"Wings," he murmured, "after all wings are the right things to fly
+with. Why not make the whole thing, body and all." He frowned hard
+as he concentrated his whole attention upon the toy before him.
+"Wings--and steam--a boiler--"
+
+The boys and Mollie watched him curiously. This was the Thought that
+came before the Thing, Mollie thought, remembering her conversation
+with Aunt Mary. It was rather like a game of hide-and-seek. Hugh was
+getting warm--how near would he get? They tried to catch the
+disjointed words that fell from his lips at intervals. "Wings," he
+muttered again, "and a place for the flier--why not a car--a--a--a
+box like an engine-driver's, with handles for controlling--"
+
+In the minds of the English children, now listening breathlessly,
+there arose a vividly distinct image of an aeroplane, darkly
+silhouetted against a pale English sky. How many they had seen!
+
+Hugh's mutterings ceased. It seemed to Mollie that the world had
+grown very still. She fancied that she could almost hear the
+blossoms dropping on the grass; there was a faint stir of leaves as
+a stray breeze came wandering by, and another sound mingled with
+that stir--a far-away hum--hum--growing louder every moment!
+
+The English children looked at each other. Was this one of Grizzel's
+miracles? Their eyes turned to the sky--yes, there it came! It
+winged its way like a mighty bird, singing its strange rough song.
+Prue dropped her work and stood up, Grizzel let fall her pencil and
+clung to Prue, Hugh leapt to his feet and ran down the steps, his
+face upturned to the clouds.
+
+"Oh, what is it?" he cried. "What is it? Who are you?"
+
+The aeroplane swooped down as the bird had done, till it was
+straight overhead, then, with a lovely curve, it skimmed away, the
+great wings outstretched as the bird's had been, away into the
+distant blue!
+
+Hugh held out his arms. "Don't go--oh, don't go!" he cried. "Come
+back, come back!"
+
+But it had gone.
+
+The English children looked at each other again, and from each other
+to Hugh.
+
+"_We_ brought it," whispered Jerry, "it was a Time-traveller."
+
+Mollie turned to the Australians. The sunlight fell on Hugh's pale
+face, on Grizzel's ruddy curls; there was a faint smile on Prue's
+lips.
+
+"Oh, we have brought our Time too near," she exclaimed. "It is good-
+bye! No, no, Prue! Oh--_this_ time it is good-bye!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"No, no--I don't want to wake up yet! It is too soon! I haven't said
+good-bye. Not yet, Aunt Mary!"
+
+"It's not 'good-bye', my Mollie, it's 'how d'ye do?' you've got to
+say! You have been dreaming too hard, child."
+
+Mollie sat up and rubbed her eyes in bewilderment, for it was not
+Aunt Mary at all, but Mother, standing there and smiling.
+
+"No, it's not my ghost," she laughed, when Mollie had released her
+stranglehold. "I came down partly to see how my daughterling was
+getting along, and partly to ask Grannie and Aunt Mary if they would
+like two more troublesome, non-paying guests. Would it bore you
+unutterably to have to entertain your twin and Jerry Outram for a
+fortnight?"
+
+"Oh, Mother! Not really! How perfectly lovely! Why?"
+
+"Measles at school; so they are closing a month early, and it would
+be _such_ a boon to Mrs. Outram and me if the boys could be
+quarantined away from home. Aunt Mary says she would _like_ to have
+them, strange woman, and Grannie is already planning a course of
+Manners--the beautiful capital-M Manners of her young days."
+
+Mollie laughed as she gave her mother a comfortable unmannerly hug.
+"You are all frauds," she said. "Don't talk to me of your young
+days. I guess they weren't one pin better than ours. I hope Dick and
+Jerry are coming soon."
+
+"To-morrow. Now, I'll have some tea, and then a little talk, and
+then I must be off again. I stole Father's car, as he has gone down
+to Bournemouth. So there's no time to waste. What beautiful
+strawberries!"
+
+"They are ready just in time for the boys," said Grannie benignly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+How it Ended
+
+
+Dick and Jerry arrived on the following morning in rampageous
+spirits. To get away from hot and dusty London to the cool, green
+country, from the discipline and restrictions of school to the
+benevolent and generous rule of Grannie's household, from plain
+bread-and-butter, stews, and solid puddings, to Martha's delicious
+scones and unlimited strawberries and cream--was enough to make any
+thirteen-year-old schoolboy radiantly cheerful. There was plenty to
+do at Chauncery, too; a first-class tennis-court and an aunt who
+played for her county; excellent golf and the same aunt nearly as
+good at golf as she was at tennis; a pony to be ridden or driven,
+several dogs and a new litter of puppies, and last but not least,
+Mollie, and the mystery of the Time-travellers to be talked over.
+
+"Here we are, Grannie," Dick exclaimed superfluously, running up the
+front steps to where Grannie stood with a smile of welcome on her
+beaming face. "And jolly glad to be here, you bet your best Sunday
+bonnet. London is like a baker's oven. You look very fit, Grannie,
+and Jerry says Aunt Mary is too young to be my aunt; I believe he is
+spoons on her already--what ho! my Uncle Jerry! Come and be
+introduced." Dick gave Jerry's arm a tug, and Young Outram shook
+hands with a smile that won Grannie's heart at once.
+
+Mollie had limped out of the morning-room with the help of a stout
+crook-handled stick. Dick gave her a brotherly peck, and Jerry
+looked at her commiseratingly. It was rather difficult to reconcile
+this pale, limping Mollie with the active young Time-traveller of
+yesterday.
+
+"You're looking a bit like a mashed potato," Dick remarked
+critically. "You've been shut up in the house too much. It's time we
+came and hauled you out. I'll tell you what, Aunt Polly-wolly-
+doodle, we'll take her out for a drive in the trap this afternoon."
+
+"We'll see," said Aunt Mary. "I am afraid you are too fresh, Dick.
+You might tumble her out in the exuberance of your spirits. Besides,
+it is going to rain--it is drizzling already."
+
+"Pouf!" said Dick lightly. "What's a little rain! A little soft, wet
+rain will do her good. And Long John seems to have been eating his
+fat head off; he played no end of jinks coming along just now. I'll
+take him round to the stables--I want to see the puppies. Hop in,
+Moll. We'll bring you back in a queen's chair."
+
+But Grannie insisted upon some light refreshment first. She was sure
+the boys must be exhausted after their two hours' journey from town.
+"And the best way to fight measles is to feed you up," she said,
+leading the way to the dining-room, where strawberries, cherries,
+biscuits, and a jug of creamy milk stood invitingly upon the table.
+
+The boys consented to the feeding-up process without a murmur. When
+the plates were all empty they departed on a round of visits to the
+stable, tennis-court, tool-shed, and other haunts dear to the heart
+of boy. Aunt Mary firmly refused to allow Mollie to accompany them,
+even in the queen's chair they offered.
+
+"You are tired already," she said to her niece, "and if you want to
+go for that drive this afternoon you must certainly rest first. Back
+to your sofa, Miss Mollie--away with you!"
+
+So Mollie rested, with a book in her lap and her thoughts by turns
+far away and near home.
+
+Later on she was carefully helped into the little governess-cart,
+with a list of messages to be done in the village, and another list
+of extravagant promises from the boys of the amazing benefits she
+was to derive from her outing with them. Long John had got over his
+first fine raptures, and was now willing to jog along the sweet
+country lanes at a steady and sober pace, suitable for the invalid
+he carried behind him.
+
+"How jolly nice it does look after London," Jerry remarked, as a
+long branch of honeysuckle swept his cap on to the floor of the
+trap, where he let it lie unconcernedly. "After all--there's no
+place like old England. For looks, anyhow."
+
+  "Each to his choice, and I rejoice
+   The lot has fallen to me
+  In a fair ground--in a fair ground--
+   Yea, Sussex by the sea,"
+
+Mollie quoted, as they came to a standstill at the top of a long
+incline. In the distance they saw the sea gleaming somewhat greyly
+under a brief spell of sunshine. All around them the trees and
+hedges sparkled with raindrops, green and cool and wet.
+
+"They look like green diamonds," said Dick, letting his cap drop
+beside Jerry's and allowing the reins to fall loosely on Long John's
+back, as the pony edged to the side of the road and began to nibble
+the grass. "Rather different from the gold-diggings, isn't it?"
+
+This remark set the ball rolling. "What do you think it was?" Mollie
+began.
+
+"Blessed if I know," Dick answered, with a shake of his head, "blue
+magic of some sort. Unless we all dreamt it."
+
+"No, it wasn't a dream," said Jerry thoughtfully. "It was simply
+psychical phenomena. I've heard of things just as queer. Awfully
+funny things happen in India. And look at the 'phantom armies' in
+France."
+
+"Rot," said Dick briefly. "_I_ think it was a kink in Mollie's
+brain, and she passed it on to me. We do, sometimes. Mother says all
+twins do. And your silly head was as empty as usual and you
+psychicked it from me."
+
+"Rot," said Jerry, with as much decision as Dick. "I saw the
+blooming parrot as soon as you did, if not sooner."
+
+"It wasn't rot," Mollie said decidedly; "whatever it was it wasn't
+rot. _I_ think--" she paused for a moment to consider her words--"I
+believe it may have been just what Prue said it was. We travelled
+back in Time. It sounds impossible, but if you come to think of it
+lots of things that happen now would have sounded impossible to
+those children, or at any rate to Papa and Mamma. If Alice in
+Wonderland could have seen forty years ahead she would have found it
+quite easy to believe six impossible things before breakfast.
+There's submarines for one, and flying, and wireless, especially
+telephones, and the cinema. If we could have taken the Campbells to
+a moving picture of a submarine submerging, with aeroplanes flying
+round, and a lecture wirelessed from America coming out of a
+gramophone, and the music done with a piano-player, Time-travelling
+would not have seemed much more wonderful to them."
+
+Dick shook his head again. "It's different," he said. "All those
+things might have seemed very wonderful and _almost_ impossible, but
+they weren't _quite_ impossible. Time-travelling is."
+
+"But we've done it," said Mollie.
+
+Nobody answered. There did not appear to be an answer to that
+statement.
+
+"Have you ever heard," Mollie said at last, speaking slowly and
+looking at the boys with solemn eyes, "of a thing called Einstein's
+Theory of Relatittey--I mean Rela_tiv_ity--Rel-a-_tiv_-ity?"
+
+"Old Bibs jawed us about it one day," Dick answered, "but he said no
+one could understand it except the chap himself and not always him.
+So he didn't expect us to, which was a good job for everybody."
+
+"That's what Aunt Mary said; I heard her talking. That's why I read
+about it, because I'm fairly good at maths. She has it all pasted in
+a book. I had to skip most of it, but here and there I found bits. I
+took some notes," Mollie drew a penny notebook from her pocket. "One
+man says that, if the world travelled as fast as light, there would
+be no Time. All the clocks would stop, and we'd be There as soon as
+we were Here. Well now, that's just what we did. We were Here--and
+we were There. So our time stopped and Now was Then. See?"
+
+"He says _If_. You couldn't live without Time. You _must_ have Time
+to do things in or where would you be? You'd have to swallow all the
+meals of your life at one mouthful and you'd bust. What comes next?"
+
+"Another man says," Mollie read impressively, "that any schoolboy--
+_any_ schoolboy," she repeated, fixing a stern eye upon her brother,
+"can see that, if the velocity of light has a given value with
+reference to the fixed stars, it cannot have the same value with
+reference to its source when this is moved relatively to the stars."
+
+"Gee-whiz!" said Dick. "Next, please."
+
+"A man says that perhaps things measured north and south are
+different from things measured east and west. _We_ travelled north
+and south. Perhaps we stretched back in Time all of a sudden, like
+elastic."
+
+"Couldn't be done. Elastic stretches both ways. If _you_ tried to
+move north and south both at the same time you'd go off like a
+Christmas cracker. Next."
+
+"A man says that our ideas of space and time may be all wrong."
+
+"Aunt Polly will agree with him if we stand here much longer," said
+Dick. "Next. Hurry up."
+
+"You don't stop to _think_," Mollie said impatiently. "Try and
+_think_. Your head might just as well be a football. What _I_ think
+is that if two un-understandable things are discovered about the
+same time they must belong to each other. Don't you see _that_?"
+
+"They might," Dick said cautiously, "and then again they mightn't. I
+don't think myself that there's any use trying to understand things
+like Time-travelling and Relativity. People like us never will."
+
+"I don't know that," said Jerry, who had been listening to the
+discussion in silence.
+
+"There's lots of things just as hard to understand, only you take
+them for granted. Being alive, for instance. Look at Mollie
+fidgeting about, and Long John chewing and twitching, and the trees
+waving their branches, and you shaking your head as if it were a
+dinner-bell, which is about what it is--it's all life. Just as hard
+to understand as Relativity, and a jolly sight harder if you ask me.
+I can't say I understand Time-travelling, but--" Jerry broke off.
+
+Mollie frowned thoughtfully. "We don't understand it _yet_," she
+said, "but in _another_ forty years--"
+
+They were all silent. Another forty years!
+
+"We'll be fifty-three," Dick said at last. "A jolly funny looking
+lot we'll be. All sitting round staring at each other through specs,
+with white hair and no teeth worth mentioning. I'll have an ear-
+trumpet, and Mollie will wear a cap like Grannie's, and Jerry will
+be a blithering old idiot saying, 'Hey!' like General Dyson-Polks."
+
+They had to laugh at this picture of themselves, and then Mollie
+began at the beginning and told the story of Prue's first visit. The
+boys were deeply interested. Their own experiences had merely been a
+repetition of the first--Hugh had appeared and, like the gentleman
+who dealt in Relativity, they were Here and they were There. "It has
+taught us something about Australia anyhow," said Dick; "that is, of
+course, if we saw the real thing. The next thing is to find out
+whether we did or if the whole show was just bunkum."
+
+"What I should like to know," said Jerry reflectively, "is who the
+Campbells were, and how they got mixed up with your lot. They must
+have at some time, or your people wouldn't have those photographs."
+
+Mollie smiled. She knew how they and the Campbells had got "mixed
+up", but she had never told the boys of her discovery; it was a
+little secret between her and a certain photograph that smiled down
+at her from the morning-room mantelpiece. She liked to think how the
+original would have laughed along with her.
+
+"What I should like to know," said Dick, "is what that chap O'Rourke
+was doing in that field. What was his mysterious experiment, and how
+did Hugh's stone cut into it? That's what I want to know, and I
+don't suppose I ever will, now. I don't think we'll go back, not at
+present anyway. The show's over for this time. In fact I don't want
+to go; I'm too jolly well pleased to be where I am. Gee-up, you lazy
+brute,"--this to Long John, who apparently thought he had done
+enough work for one day and was nosing about the soft grass with
+contemptuous disregard for his passengers. He moved on unwillingly,
+and Dick took him briskly downhill.
+
+In the village there were old friends to be greeted, and many
+inquiries for Mollie's ankle to be answered. Fresh crusty loaves
+were brought out by the baker, loosely wrapped in soft paper, and
+packed away under the seats. A large box, containing a peculiarly
+delicious make of sponge cake, was set on Mollie's lap, and a blue
+paper bag of sifted sugar was entrusted to Jerry's special care by a
+misguided grocer. Dick had a golf-club needing attention, which
+entailed a long and intimate conversation with the local carpenter,
+who was also a well-known local golfer, and the best hand at
+repairing clubs, Dick was convinced, in the whole of Great Britain.
+
+It was getting on towards tea-time when Long John's head was at last
+turned homewards, and his feet covered the ground with cheerful and
+approving swiftness. A drizzle of rain fell, "Just enough to save us
+the trouble of washing for tea," Dick commented. "Do you think our
+white aunt can be induced to come and play golf after tea, Moll, or
+is she afraid of rain?"
+
+"Good gracious, no," Mollie replied. "Aunt Mary goes out in all the
+weathers ever invented. She will love a round of golf; she hasn't
+played since I sprained my ankle. I wish I could come too. I wonder
+if I could hop round with my stick and look on. I do love to watch
+Aunt Mary drive; I learnt a lot from her last week before I sprained
+my ankle in that idiotic way."
+
+The boys negatived this proposal. "You'd get a ball in the eye to
+finish you up with," Dick said. "We'll plan some picnics till you
+are better, and explore the country a bit and knock some fat off
+this animal--hullo!--what's that?"
+
+A sudden twist in the narrow road had brought into view a motor
+bicycle, leaning dejectedly against the hedge, whilst its owner
+squatted beside it and tinkered at its mechanism--tinkered in vain
+apparently, for, as the boys drew up beside him to offer assistance,
+he rose to his feet and shook his head hopelessly.
+
+"Can we help you?" Dick asked, eyeing the bicycle with interest.
+"I'm afraid we've got no tools here, but there is a smithy about a
+mile farther on and the chap there has a motor bike, so I expect he
+could lend you a hand."
+
+"Thank you very much," replied the stranger, looking relieved. "I'll
+shove her along there and leave her. I am much afraid she's gone
+altogether phut for the time being, and will have to be trundled
+back to town by rail. Can you tell me if I am anywhere near a place
+called Chauncery?"
+
+"Rather," Dick answered, with a grin. "That's our place. It's about
+half a mile up the next turning to the left."
+
+"Indeed!" said the stranger, looking somewhat surprised and slightly
+dismayed; "I understood that it was occupied by Mrs. and Miss
+Gordon, not by anyone with chil--young people," he corrected himself
+hastily.
+
+"So it is. But at present they've got us, owing to circs. We are
+Mrs. Gordon's grandchildren."
+
+"Oh--I see! I hope that Mrs. and Miss Gordon are in good health?"
+
+"Pretty bobbish, thank you," Dick was answering when Mollie
+interrupted:
+
+"Can we give you a lift? We are on our way home, and I am sure it is
+going to rain hard presently."
+
+"That is a very kind offer," the motorist replied gratefully, "and I
+wish I could accept it, as I am a trifle lame; but I can't very well
+leave my machine lying derelict by the roadside, and I fear that
+your hospitality cannot be extended to the old bus, I thought
+perhaps--if you would be so very kind--you might drop a message at
+the smithy you mentioned, and I will wait here until they send
+someone along."
+
+But the word "lame" had roused all Mollie's sympathy. "How lame are
+you?" she asked. "Is it a wound? I am lame too--only a sprained
+ankle, but I should hate to walk from here to Chauncery."
+
+"Of course you couldn't," the motorist said kindly. "I am not so bad
+as that. My wound healed long ago, but it has left rather a crocky
+foot behind. I could manage well enough, however, if someone from
+the smithy would come and push the bike."
+
+"Tell you what," Dick suggested; "if you hop in and look after
+Mollie, Jerry and I will push the bike to the smithy; we'll be after
+you in two jiffs."
+
+The stranger looked at Dick with a smile and a slight lift of his
+eyebrows. "You are very trusting, young man. Supposing I run away
+with the pony and the cart and the sister? What will you do then?"
+
+"Stick to the bike," Dick answered promptly, "I have been wanting
+one most frightfully badly, and Father says I might as well ask him
+to give me the Isle of Wight. Besides--you _said_ you knew Grannie
+and Aunt Mary."
+
+"Well, I happen to be quite a safe person, so you're all right this
+time, but it wouldn't _always_ do, you know," and the stranger gave
+his head a warning shake. "You are exceedingly kind. I only fear it
+would be rather a heavy job for you."
+
+But this the boys denied strenuously. "If we stick, one of us will
+go and collect young Simpson and the other will watch the bike; but
+we'll be as right as rain--and we'd better hurry up." Dick left the
+trap as he spoke by the simple means of dropping over the side, and
+Jerry followed his example.
+
+"I had better give you my name for Mr.--Simpson, did you say?--Major
+Campbell--Hugh Campbell."
+
+There was a dead silence. If the stranger had said "George the Fifth
+of England" he could not have produced more effect. All three stared
+at him with their mouths open. "What's the matter with that?" he
+asked. "It's a very respectable name, and it really does belong to
+me. Perhaps I should give you my card." He put his hand in his
+breastpocket.
+
+"Oh no," Mollie said rather breathlessly. "No--please don't mind--
+it's quite all right, only--you look so young."
+
+"So _what_?" exclaimed Major Campbell, standing stock still with his
+hand in his pocket.
+
+"I mean," Mollie explained nervously, "I mean--" looking at the boys
+for help, but in vain, "I--you--so young to be a friend of
+Grannie's" she ended feebly.
+
+"You're a goose, Moll," Dick broke in. "We once knew a Hugh
+Campbell, but it was years and _years_ ago, and he was ever so much
+younger than you--he was my age--and there must be thousands of Hugh
+Campbells."
+
+"Years and years ago! Your age! And she says I look too young!"
+repeated Major Campbell in pardonable bewilderment. "How old do I
+look--five perhaps?"
+
+Mollie blushed, and the boys giggled. "Look here," said Dick, "if we
+stand here till midnight discussing Major Campbell's age we won't
+get home to tea, and then Aunt Mary will send out a search party,
+and we'll look pretty asinine. Long John's getting baity, he'll bolt
+in a minute. Take the reins, Mollie. Don't eat all the strawberries,
+and tell Aunt Mary that cherry jam is my fancy. Come on, Young
+Outram."
+
+Major Campbell saw the boys start before taking the reins from
+Mollie. Long John gave his head an impatient toss, and set off with
+the determination that he would not stop again for anybody till he
+was in sight of his stable.
+
+A hundred thoughts chased each other through Mollie's mind. Of
+course this could not possibly be _that_ Hugh Campbell. It would be
+altogether _too_ queer. And yet--after all, nothing could be much
+queerer than the experience they had already had. Putting one thing
+and another together it did seem to be more than a coincidence that
+a Hugh Campbell should be on his way to see someone who had a green
+diamond set in a ring given to her "long, long ago". She stole a
+look at her companion as he sat opposite her, his eyes fixed on the
+road ahead and his thoughts obviously elsewhere. Hugh the inventor
+had not passed even thirteen years without gathering various little
+mementoes of his inventions in the shape of scars here and there,
+and these had not escaped the sharp observation of Mollie, the Girl
+Guide. There had been a tiny gap in his left eyebrow, the result of
+inventing a new pattern of firework--a crooked little finger on his
+left hand--a funny star-shaped mark on his right jaw. Some of these
+and other remembered marks might have been obliterated by time, but
+if even one remained she would recognize it. He had removed his hat
+and disclosed a head of closely cropped grey hair, which made him
+look older. Yes--there was the gap in his eyebrow _and_ the crooked
+finger. Mollie felt certain that this was indeed the inventor.
+
+"Have you ever been in Dublin?" she asked abruptly, forgetting for
+the moment that asking questions was forbidden.
+
+"In Dublin?" echoed Major Campbell, bringing his eyes and his
+thoughts from the winding road and concentrating both upon Mollie.
+"Are you a thought-reader, Miss Mollie? For I was thinking of Dublin
+at that very moment. Yes, I have been there. Indeed, it was there
+that I first met Miss Gordon, at a ball at Dublin Castle. I was
+visiting some people she knew, and later on she joined us. My
+sisters were over here at that time too. Has Miss Gordon ever
+mentioned the O'Rourkes to you?"
+
+"Yes," said Mollie, feeling absolutely giddy with excitement, "that
+is, no--not exactly----" she felt very confused--"I mean--was there
+a Desmond O'Rourke?"
+
+"That's right," said Major Campbell, nodding his grey head, and
+apparently too wrapped up in his own memories to notice Mollie's
+confused answer. "Good old Desmond! Of course he was home then too.
+Dublin was a very different place in those days, and we had what you
+youngsters would call the time of our lives. It was a long time ago--long,
+long ago." He sighed, and his thoughts evidently wandered
+away again from his agitated little companion, which Mollie felt was
+a good thing, as, if he had been observing her closely, he would
+certainly have thought that the poor child was "not _quite_ on the
+spot".
+
+She was now quite convinced that this was really Hugh, the brother
+of Prudence and Grizzel. He showed no signs of remembering her, but,
+of course, she said to herself, what was only yesterday to her was
+forty years ago to this elderly man--and, besides, perhaps the Time-
+travelling was all hers and Prue's and he was never really in it at
+all. "Like Alice in the Red King's dream," she thought vaguely. She
+felt sure, too, that it was he who had given Aunt Mary the green
+diamond long ago, though why he had never married her was past
+Mollie's power of understanding. Grown-up people did--and left
+undone--the most incomprehensible things. In the meantime she felt
+that she would like to give her aunt some sort of warning of the
+surprise in store, otherwise Aunt Mary might be _too much_
+surprised. Mollie herself hated with all her might and main showing
+her feelings before people--but _how_ to prepare Aunt Mary! That was
+the difficulty. She put all her Guiding wits to work, but nothing
+feasible suggested itself. There was no boy to send ahead with a
+message, and, of course, she could not send Major Campbell himself.
+How on earth could she get even the slightest warning conveyed.
+
+The had begun to climb the hill which led to Chauncery gate; Long
+John's enthusiasm cooled a little, and he dropped into a jogging
+zigzag walk. Major Campbell was looking about him with interest,
+"Just the way I did," Mollie thought--and then the idea came.
+
+"I'm going to signal to Aunt Mary that we are nearly home," she
+warned her companion, "so that she'll have tea ready," and, putting
+her hands to her mouth, she gave a long, shrill "cooo-eeeee!" "Now,"
+she said to herself, "that should remind her of Australia and
+Desmond O'Rourke and green diamonds."
+
+But Mollie's brilliant idea had not exactly the effect she expected.
+When the sound of that shrill cooo-eeeee penetrated to the morning-
+room, Aunt Mary did indeed think of Australia, but she also thought,
+naturally enough, that the children were in difficulties and needed
+her help. So, a few minutes later, Mollie and Major Campbell saw a
+slim figure, clad in a short skirt and jumper, running down the hill
+as fast as a pair of active feet could carry it.
+
+"Oh, _dear_!" Mollie exclaimed, "Aunt Mary thinks something is
+wrong, and when she sees no boys and you here instead she will think
+it is wronger."
+
+"_That_ can't be Mary Gordon!" exclaimed Major Campbell. "She
+doesn't look much older than you!"
+
+"It is, though," Mollie replied hurriedly, more flashes of genius
+scintillating through her brain. "Jump out and meet her, Major
+Campbell, and tell her we are all right."
+
+This suggestion evidently met with entire approval, for Major
+Campbell, adopting Dick's tactics, was over the side of the cart and
+striding (with a slight limp) up the hill "Before you could say Jack
+Robinson," Mollie quoted, as she took the reins and tactfully
+directed Long John's attention to an extra juicy patch of grass.
+Between his greed and her excitement they nearly overturned into the
+ditch, but a kindly boulder saved them in the nick of time.
+
+"I must say," Mollie soliloquized, "he is fairly old for Aunt Mary,
+though he doesn't look it even with that white hair. What _will_ the
+boys say? I believe Aunt Mary has forgotten all about us--there they
+go! Up the hill without ever once looking at me. I suppose I may
+follow now. Gee-up, Long John. Don't you ever think of _anything_
+but eating?" (which was a little unfair of Mollie under the
+circumstances).
+
+But if Aunt Mary had forgotten her family she very soon remembered
+it again, for she and Major Campbell were waiting at the gate when
+Mollie came up, and they all arrived at the front door together.
+
+When Dick and Jerry came within sight of the house, the first thing
+to catch their eyes was Mollie at an upstairs window, and a pair of
+signalling flags going hard. The boys stopped short.
+
+"It--is--Hugh. It--is--Hugh. It--is--Hugh," the flags repeated
+emphatically. "Look--out. With--Aunt--in drawing--room. Beware.
+Hurry--up."
+
+"My aunt!" Dick exclaimed appropriately. "What the dickens does she
+mean? Aunt Mary and that old chap! Get out! His hair is whiter than
+Father's. Aunt Mary has got the hardest overhand serve in Sussex.
+_She_ doesn't want to get married, I'll bet my boots. Rot!"
+
+"I don't know that," said Jerry. "I rather twigged that when he
+asked for her. I believe that old Johnny _is_ Hugh. I think he is a
+jolly decent-looking chap, and white hair means nothing nowadays.
+And after you're forty I don't see that it matters what age you
+are." Jerry was encouraging a romantic tenderness for Prue and her
+brown curls, consequently he felt slightly superior to Dick.
+
+The boys left the tell-tale scrunching gravel and trod gently on the
+velvety border of grass that edged the drive. They stole round the
+house like thieves, and found their way up to Mollie's bedroom. That
+young lady hopped round on one foot waving her flags triumphantly.
+
+"I guessed it ages ago," she said, forgetting in her excitement that
+"ages ago" was only yesterday morning--it was really very difficult
+to keep pace with a Time that behaved so erratically--"Something
+Aunt Mary told me about having a green diamond made me wonder.
+That's why I knew him before you did. Now Hugh will be our uncle. My
+goodness!"
+
+The tale of the Desmond O'Rourke conversation convinced even the
+unwilling Dick that Major Campbell was Hugh the inventor, but he
+still refused to share Mollie's conviction that there was a romance
+connecting him with Aunt Mary. "You girls are so jolly sentimental,"
+he said impatiently. "Why _should_ Aunt Mary want to go and get
+engaged to a chap old enough to be her father, or at any rate her
+uncle, just as I have arrived. I bet I play a better game of golf
+than he does, and even Bemister says my tennis has improved a lot
+this term."
+
+"_I_ agree with Mollie," said Jerry, trying to look romantic, "I
+thought so first go-off, as soon as he said 'Miss Gordon'; there's a
+look--"
+
+"If it's the look you think you've got on just now it's a fairly
+imbecile one," Dick interrupted scornfully. "Perhaps you are in love
+with Mollie!"
+
+Mollie, who was rather tired, was leaning back against her pillows,
+her bandaged foot lying on the bed and the other foot swinging over
+the side. Her short, blue-serge skirt was at its shortest and made
+no pretence at hiding her serviceable blue knickers, from which
+emerged a pair of useful girl-guidish legs, suitably clad in black
+merino stockings and lace-up shoes. Her bobbed hair was for the
+moment rough and tumbled, and she still held her flags spread out on
+either side of her. No one could have looked less romantic, and they
+all three had to laugh at Dick's suggestion. He cheered up slightly.
+
+"Anyhow--now perhaps we can find out a few things--what the blood
+was, and how rich the diamond-mine made them."
+
+"And if Grizzel made her fortune in jam," Mollie added, "and if Hugh
+ever invented an aeroplane."
+
+"He's in the R.A.F.," Jerry remarked, "we saw it on the card he gave
+us."
+
+This reminder cheered Dick up still more. If his favourite aunt had
+the bad taste to throw over a promising football nephew for anything
+so wishy-washy as a lover, it was consoling to know that the wisher-
+washer might include an aeroplane. "Perhaps he'll take us up one of
+these days if we behave nicely about Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle," he
+said hopefully; "that is, if there really is anything in Mollie's
+tosh. He looks an aged old party to be turning somersaults in the
+air, I must say."
+
+The welcome sound of the tea-bell put an end to their discussion,
+and soon Dick was drowning his sorrows in strawberries and cream. It
+was rather a bad--or good--sign that Aunt Mary and the mysterious
+Major Campbell were absent, but on the whole it was a relief. Only a
+somewhat preoccupied Grannie was there to attend to their wants. No
+one spoke very much. There was a slightly depressing atmosphere
+about that tea, so carefully prepared by the missing aunt. The place
+where she usually sat looked extraordinarily empty, much emptier,
+Mollie thought, than it did when her aunt merely happened to be out.
+As soon as tea was over the boys went off to visit the puppies
+again; Grannie, still inclined to be silent and absent-minded, sat
+down to her knitting; and Mollie, feeling somehow more lonely than
+she had done before the boys came, wandered into the deserted
+morning-room. She picked up a book she had been interested in
+yesterday, but it had lost its flavour and she soon laid it down and
+went over to the window, where she stood looking out at the wet
+garden. It was raining in earnest now, not heavily but steadily;
+little pools were collecting in the gravel, rose-petals were
+dropping in showers, and the flowers in the herbaceous borders were
+beginning to look as if they had had enough rain for the present and
+would welcome now a chance to dry themselves. Mollie opened the
+window wide and seated herself sideways on the sill, heedless of the
+raindrops that blew against her face and blouse. For a long time she
+stared out into the rain, seeing not the well-kept garden before
+her, but the cypress-bordered path in that other garden.
+
+The sound of the clock striking made her turn her head and look
+indoors. The room looked dark and dull. Aunt Mary's work-basket
+stood open on the table, with her work lying where she had flung it
+down when she ran out to meet Mollie. The jig-saw puzzle was tidied
+away, and the sofa cushions sat in a prim row on the sofa, with
+nothing about them to show how often a kind hand had tucked them in
+behind a young invalid's back. The volume of Shakespeare still lay
+on a side-table, and reminded Mollie freshly of Prue's first visit.
+
+"I am being sorry for myself," she thought, "and of all the useless
+things--! I will go upstairs and change my frock and tidy my hair,
+and then write to Mother. And when the boys come in we must find
+something to do. It is simply horrid of me to be moping round
+because dear Aunt Mary is happy, especially as it is the very thing
+I was keen on yesterday. I feel as if I lived in the middle of one
+of Hugh's shadow-clocks," she sighed as she went slowly upstairs,
+"with Yesterday and To-morrow going round me all the time, and my
+own shadow falling on them both." This poetic fancy rather pleased
+her, and she decided to put on her best evening frock and fasten her
+hair with a rose velvet bandeau.
+
+She was clasping a pale coral necklace round her throat when there
+came a tap at the door, followed by "May I come in?" and then Aunt
+Mary herself appeared. And such a radiant and smiling Aunt Mary that
+all Mollie's depression vanished in the twinkling of an eye. She
+hurried across the room and gave Mollie a hug.
+
+"Why--how pretty you have made yourself, Mollie darling. That is
+sweet of you, for I want you to look your very best this evening. I
+have a most astonishing piece of news for you--why do you laugh, you
+naughty girl? I don't see how you can possibly have guessed, and I
+am sure Grannie didn't tell you."
+
+Mollie laughed again as she returned her aunt's hug: "It was not so
+frightfully difficult to guess, after what you said about the green
+diamond ring yesterday--why, you have got it on! It _is_ lovely,
+isn't it? I think it is _just_ as beautiful--" Mollie stopped in
+some confusion, "I mean it is the loveliest ring I ever saw. If I
+ever get engaged I should like one exactly the same."
+
+"I hope it will bring you a little more luck than it brought us to
+begin with," Aunt Mary said, with a sigh, looking down at the hand
+which lay in Mollie's. "It is ten years since I got it, and if you
+had asked me yesterday I should have said it would perhaps be
+another ten before I could wear it like this, but all sorts of
+wonderful things happened all of a sudden and here we are! But I
+cannot understand why you guessed anything yesterday, you funny
+child. I am sure I said very little."
+
+"It wasn't what you _said_, it was how you _looked_. And you didn't
+hear yourself sighing, Aunt Polly-wolly-doodle. We were doing _As
+You Like It_ at school before I got measles, and we learnt something
+about people in love, I can tell you!" Mollie nodded her head
+wisely. "I am not romantic myself like the girl who was doing
+Rosalind, but I'm not _quite_ so blind as a bat is, and I came up
+with Major Campbell this afternoon."
+
+"Dear me!" Aunt Mary exclaimed with a laugh, "you are getting
+dreadfully grown-up, Mollie. I hope you don't--that you don't think
+my dear old Hugh is really old, because he happens to have rather
+white hair. It is the heart that counts, and his blessed old heart
+is as young as yours. Now I must run and dress. Call the boys and
+tell them to come in and be nice to their new uncle. You have simply
+_got_ to be friends."
+
+Half an hour later three exceedingly tidy and rather prim young
+people were formally introduced to "Uncle Hugh", who surveyed them
+gravely through a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses. Mollie was not
+sure whether a twinkle she thought she saw belonged to the eyes or
+to the glasses. "I could almost believe that he remembers the Time-
+travellers," she said to herself. But if he did he gave no further
+sign of it, nor could the children see much trace of the boy Hugh in
+this keen-eyed, white-haired, brown-skinned stranger.
+
+"I suppose you are detesting me with all your might," he remarked as
+they seated themselves. "You have all my sympathy. I should detest
+myself if I were you. But you have had her for a good many years,
+haven't you? It is high time that she flew off with me."
+
+"Is she going to fly?" Dick asked with interest. "I could put up
+with getting married myself if my wife came in an aeroplane and took
+me for a jolly good flight. I could chuck her out if I didn't like
+her," he added, with a grin.
+
+"The very first time I ever flew in my life," Major Campbell said,
+"was in a balloon, and I played at the game of chucking out, and got
+a fright which I am convinced caused my hair to turn prematurely
+grey. Would you like to hear about it?"
+
+"Ra-_ther_!" Dick and Jerry replied together. (Now perhaps the
+mystery of the blood might be explained.)
+
+So Major Campbell told them the story that they already knew nearly
+as well as he did himself--in fact, Mollie found herself on the
+point of correcting him upon one or two points. He told it well,
+better than he had done on that agitating occasion so many years
+ago, but--he did not divulge the mystery.
+
+It was almost too tantalizing to be endured. Mollie had to keep
+repeating to herself "A Guide's Word is _Always_ to be Trusted," as
+she reflected upon that most provoking promise extracted from her by
+Prue. It was so long ago, surely a question, one question, would not
+matter now. Unfortunately it was also, as Mollie expressed it to
+herself "so short ago" that she could remember Prue's words only too
+plainly: "_You must not ask questions however much you want to_." It
+is true that she had broken the rule once, but it had been in
+forgetfulness, not deliberately. Dick and Jerry were perhaps less
+picturesque in the manner of their vows, but they certainly had no
+intention of breaking them. It was Aunt Mary who unconsciously came
+to the rescue:
+
+"And what _was_ the blood that wasn't blood?"
+
+"Oh, that! That was merely--that was merely----" Major Campbell
+stopped and began to laugh.
+
+"Merely what? Be quick," said dear Aunt Mary, "we are longing to
+know."
+
+"I am sorry--I hate to let you down, but it was only dye. Desmond
+had a notion that he could make a fortune with a native dye factory--
+vegetable dyes, you know. But it never came to anything. I think it
+is rather a pity he didn't persevere; he might have done something
+with it."
+
+Dye! Well, of all the prosaic endings to a thrilling tale! And yet,
+when the children came to think of it, what else could it have been?
+They were annoyed at themselves for not thinking of such an obvious
+thing. Major Campbell laughed again when he saw the blank look on
+three faces.
+
+"It's a poor end-up, isn't it?" he said. "Why did you force me into
+it? But there is still the stone, if you would like to see it. You
+will find it over there on the writing-table."
+
+Dick fetched the stone--the identical stone they had last seen in
+Hugh's hand forty years ago. After all, the end was not so prosaic!
+
+It looked little the worse for its adventures through Time and Space
+as it lay in Dick's hand. An inscription had been scratched in and
+inked over:
+
+  Hugh Campbell }
+                    August 4th, 1880.
+  Desmond O'Rourke }
+  Mary Gordon. 1910.
+
+They looked at in silence for a minute.
+
+"It reminds me of a tombstone," Dick remarked cheerfully, "if you
+wrote 'Wife of the Aboves' under Aunt Mary's name it would look
+jolly mysterious."
+
+"Grand-daughter of one of the aboves would be more appropriate,"
+Major Campbell said ruefully, smoothing the back of his grey head
+with one hand, while with the other he gave a gentle tug to a stray
+lock of Aunt Mary's pretty brown hair.
+
+"Fiddlesticks!" Aunt Mary said briskly. "We'll get you a wig if you
+feel so badly about it, or perhaps Desmond would dye you a nice
+bright red. No--I'll tell you what would be really interesting--if
+you could write on your stone the names of all the people whose
+lives it dropped into that day. There are Desmond and Prue and their
+children" (Jerry looked up with a startled glance), "and their
+wonderful grandchild" (Jerry's eyes were round with dismay.
+Farewell, Romance!), "and Grizzel and Jack and _their_ children, for
+Grizzel would never have met Jack if Prue hadn't married Desmond.
+And there's me, for if you hadn't got tangled up with the O'Rourkes
+we should probably never have met, even though our greats and grands
+were such friends. Then we may add Dick's name to our list, for I
+mean to have him out in Australia one of these days, and perhaps
+Jerry too--who knows! And Mollie may go green-diamond hunting among
+the young O'Rourkes--Brian would do nicely." Aunt Mary laughed
+mischievously at Mollie.
+
+"That _would_ be a sermon in stones and no mistake," Major Cambell
+said, with a smile. "We should require a regular palimpsest to hold
+them all. Think of Grizzel and all the pies she loves to have her
+fingers in--all those people on their fruit farm for instance,
+mostly people who have been down on their luck one way or another.
+And the young persons she has helped with what she calls their
+artistic careers. And Prue with her army of Girl Guides!"
+
+"And all through one little stone," Aunt Mary said, taking the stone
+into her own hand and looking at it thoughtfully.
+
+"I expect the green diamond had more to do with it than the stone,
+really," Mollie said dreamily, thinking to herself that if Desmond
+had not found the ring he would not have troubled to seek for the
+stone-thrower. She would have pursued this interesting line of
+thought had not someone at that moment trod upon her well foot, and
+someone else pinched an arm hard. These delicate attentions brought
+her back to reality and she felt that she had "dropped a brick"
+pretty badly. Aunt Mary looked puzzled, and Major Campbell's eyes
+twinkled--or was it his eye-glasses?
+
+"The diamond may have been a temptation," he said, "but I hope it
+wasn't such a bribe as all that comes to. You have to remember that
+she might have stuck to the ring and thrown me over any time all
+these years."
+
+Mollie breathed a sigh of relief. Her words had evidently been
+misunderstood--or had he understood and come to her help? She wished
+he would take off those glasses!
+
+"Catch her!" Dick was saying indignantly, "Aunt Mary is a jolly good
+old sport! You don't know her half as well as I do if _that_ is what
+you think."
+
+[Illustration: THERE THEY WERE--OH, HOW MOLLIE LONGED TO KEEP THEM!]
+
+"Don't I?" said Major Campbell, turning to look at Aunt Mary, who
+was beginning to show signs of embarrassment under so much scrutiny.
+He took off his eye-glasses, but immediately replaced them by a pair
+of large round tortoise-shell spectacles through which he gazed at
+her solemnly.
+
+"What _are_ you doing, Hugh? Take off those absurd things this
+moment," Aunt Mary commanded as the children laughed.
+
+"I am looking at you through stronger glasses," he answered. "I
+thought perhaps I wasn't seeing you properly, but the better I see
+the prettier you look."
+
+"My hat!" Dick exclaimed, "look at Aunt Mary blushing. She's the
+colour of a ripe red currant. I think it's time we did a bunk. Come
+on, you kids!"
+
+Late that evening Mollie sat at the open window again, this time to
+watch for the boys, who had set out for a belated round of golf. The
+rain had ceased and the air was fresh and sweet, but the lingering
+twilight was darkened by clouds and the garden was veiled in a
+ghostly white mist. Mollie had been listening to talk of times old
+and new, and now Grannie had settled down to her nightly game of
+patience, Major Campbell was seated in a deep and roomy arm-chair,
+and Aunt Mary had gone to the piano.
+
+"Play the old tunes you played me to sleep with," Mollie begged. "I
+think I like old tunes best of all."
+
+"So do I, Mollie," said Major Campbell. "Do you remember Prue's old
+musical-box, Mary? It is still in existence. Prue always turns it
+out on the dear old pater's birthday and has a sort of memorial
+service--I'm glad he didn't live to see the war. He was such a
+softhearted, confiding old chap, and never could be induced to see
+the black spots in poor human nature--he was always ready with an
+excuse for any lapse from virtue. He never could screw himself up to
+the pitch of giving his children a thorough good rowing, though I am
+sure we often needed one badly enough."
+
+Aunt Mary's fingers wandered vaguely over the piano for a few
+minutes, and then she began to sing:
+
+  "Oft in the stilly night
+   Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
+  Fond memory brings the light
+   Of other days around me."
+
+It seemed to Mollie that she could hear the silvery tinkle of Prue's
+musical-box again, and see Papa's kind blue eyes.
+
+As she listened to the music and gazed into the misty garden, she
+saw, as she thought, the boys standing in the shadow of the black
+Cedar of Lebanon across the way. She leaned forward, wondering why
+they lingered there so silently. It was not easy to see in the on-
+coming darkness--surely there were _three_ figures, and two of them
+looked like girls. Her heart gave a sudden jump--yes, she could
+plainly make out two girls and a boy. She slipped through the window
+and crossed the terraced drive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There they were--dear Prue, with Grizzel clinging to one arm, and
+Hugh in the background--oh, how Mollie longed to keep them!
+
+"I was thinking of you, Prue," she said eagerly, "I wanted you so
+much. If you could only stay!"
+
+Prue shook her head, with a smile. "No, we have only come to say
+good-bye, Mollie. Your Time-travelling is over for this time, you
+won't come to our Time any more. Did you like it?"
+
+"I _loved_ it," Mollie answered fervently, not pausing to ask
+herself whether it was the Time or the children that she had loved.
+"If only it could be _now_, Prue, so that you could stay!"
+
+But Prue shook her head again: "We've got to go. Perhaps some day we
+will meet again--Time-travellers often do. I think that's why--
+that's why----" she knit her pretty brows in the effort to express a
+difficult thought.
+
+"Hush!" Grizzel said suddenly, "she is singing 'I shot an arrow into
+the air'; Mamma sings that and I love it. I want to listen; may we
+go nearer?"
+
+They tip-toed across the gravel, and stood in the shadow of the
+lamp-lit window.
+
+
+  "I breathed a song into the air,
+  It fell to earth I know not where,
+  For who has sight so swift and strong
+  That it can follow the flight of a song?
+
+  "Long, long afterwards, in an oak
+  I found the arrow still unbroke.
+  And the song from beginning to end
+  I found again, in the heart of a friend."
+
+"I love that," Grizzel whispered. "Papa says you often do find the
+song long, long afterwards. I think it's something like casting your
+bread upon the waters, though I never could understand why they
+chose _bread_. I shouldn't think there would be much of it left
+after many days in the water. I like a song better."
+
+Hugh had stepped nearer to the window, and was observing the
+interior of the room with curious eyes. "Who's the old buffer with
+white hair?" he asked.
+
+Mollie began to laugh, but suddenly stopped. She looked from the boy
+to the man--so there _were_ two Hughs! "He is a Time-traveller," she
+answered softly, "but he has travelled the other way, forwards, you
+know. He has invented a lot of things about flying."
+
+"Has he!" exclaimed Hugh. "That old chap!" He leaned forward and
+gazed more intently at the white-haired man. "I wish I was him," he
+said wistfully!
+
+"Cooo-eee!"
+
+The call seemed to come from far away, muffled, perhaps, by the
+night air.
+
+"They are calling us," said Prue. "We must go--come, Hugh. Good-bye,
+Mollie, goodbye."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Where are you, Mollie, my child?" Aunt Mary had risen and was
+coming towards the window. Mollie turned to answer her.
+
+"All right, Aunt Mary. I am here looking for the boys."
+
+"Are the boys not there? I thought I heard voices." Aunt Mary leaned
+out and peered into the dark. "How dark it is--I can't see--I thought
+for a moment I saw someone there--here they are coming!"
+
+"Cooo-eee! Where are you, Moll? We want you."
+
+"It's Dick calling," Mollie said. "I'll go and meet them, Aunt Mary;
+it's only a step. Coming, Dick," she called back.
+
+But she found it hard to walk on the wet gravel without her stick,
+and after sending another call to the boys stood and waited where
+she was, wondering why she had not felt her foot when she had gone
+to the other children. She stared into the shadows of the cedar, but
+the little figures had disappeared. "I love them," she murmured to
+herself, "and I can never forget this week, whether I ever learn to
+understand Time-travelling or not. I mean to learn ever so much
+about Australia and our other colonies, and about the immigrant
+ships Prue talked of. I am glad she is a Guider and that I am a
+Guide." She looked back to the lighted window, through which she
+could see Aunt Mary and Major Campbell standing together, then
+forward into the misty dark--she could hear the boys coming up the
+hill. "I loved Prue and Grizzel and their Time," she repeated, "and
+of course Aunt Mary is going to have a tremendously happy time now,
+but--I am glad that _I_ belong to Dick and Jerry. I like our own
+Time best; it suits us. It's a good sort of Time for doing things,
+and it will be better before we are done with it, if we all Carry
+On.
+
+"I'm here, Dick!"
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Happy Adventurers, by Lydia Miller Middleton
+
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