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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

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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





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