"Alf a mo!" said Eliza"s gentleman friend next morning. He was waiting for her when she opened the door with pail and hearthstone in her hand. "Sorry you couldn"t come out yesterday."
"So"m I." Eliza swept the wet flannel along the top step. "What did you do?"
"I "ad a bit of a headache," said the gentleman friend. "I laid down most of the afternoon. What were you up to?"
"Oh, nothing pertickler," said Eliza.
"Then it was all a dream, she said, when he was gone; "but it"ll be a lesson to me not to meddle with anybody"s old ring again in a hurry."
"So they didn"t tell "er about me behaving like I did," said he as he went "sun, I suppose like our Army in India. I hope I ain"t going to be liable to it, that"s all!"
Johnson was the hero of the hour. It was he who had tracked the burglars, laid his plans, and recovered the lost silver. He had not thrown the stone public opinion decided that Mabel and her aunt must have been mistaken in supposing that there was a stone at all.
But he did not deny the warning letter. It was Gerald who went out after breakfast to buy the newspaper, and who read aloud to the others the two columns of fiction which were the Liddlesby Observer"s report of the facts. As he read every mouth opened wider and wider, and when he ceased with "this gifted fellow-townsman with detective instincts which out-rival those of Messrs. Lecoq and Holmes, and whose promotion is now a.s.sured,"
there was quite a blank silence.
"Well," said Jimmy, breaking it, "he doesn"t stick it on neither, does he?"
"I feel," said Kathleen, "as if it was our fault as if it was us had told all these whoppers; because if it hadn"t been for you they couldn"t have, Jerry. How could he say all that?"
"Well," said Gerald, trying to be fair, "you know, after all, the chap had to say something. I"m glad I " He stopped abruptly.
"You"re glad you what?"
"No matter," said he, with an air of putting away affairs of state.
"Now, what are we going to do today? The faithful Mabel approaches; she will want her ring. And you and Jimmy want it too. Oh, I know. Mademoiselle hasn"t had any attention paid to her for more days than our hero likes to confess."
"I wish you wouldn"t always call yourself "our hero", said Jimmy; "you aren"t mine, anyhow."
"You"re both of you mine," said Kathleen hastily.
"Good little girl." Gerald smiled annoyingly. "Keep baby brother in a good temper till Nursie comes back."
"You"re not going out without us?" Kathleen asked in haste.
"I haste away,
"Tis market day,"
sang Gerald,
"And in the market there
Buy roses for my fair.
If you want to come too, get your boots on, and look slippy about it."
"I don"t want to come," said Jimmy, and sniffed.
Kathleen turned a despairing look on Gerald.
"Oh, James, James," said Gerald sadly, "how difficult you make it for me to forget that you"re my little brother! If ever I treat you like one of the other chaps, and rot you like I should Turner or Moberley or any of my pals well, this is what comes of it."
"You don"t call them your baby brothers," said Jimmy, and truly.
"No; and I"ll take precious good care I don"t call you it again. Come on, my hero and heroine. The devoted Mesrour is your salaaming slave."
The three met Mabel opportunely at the corner of the square where every Friday the stalls and the awnings and the green umbrellas were pitched, and poultry, pork, pottery, vegetables, drapery, sweets, toys, tools, mirrors, and all sorts of other interesting merchandise were spread out on trestle tables, piled on carts whose horses were stabled and whose shafts were held in place by piled wooden cases, or laid out, as in the case of crockery and hardware, on the bare flag-stones of the market-place.
The sun was shining with great goodwill, and, as Mabel remarked, "all Nature looked smiling and gay." There were a few bunches of flowers among the vegetables, and the children hesitated, balanced in choice.
"Mignonette is sweet," said Mabel.
"Roses are roses," said Kathleen.
"Carnations are tuppence," said Jimmy; and Gerald, sniffing among the bunches of tightly-tied tea-roses, agreed that this settled it.
So the carnations were bought, a bunch of yellow ones, like sulphur, a bunch of white ones like clotted cream, and a bunch of red ones like the cheeks of the doll that Kathleen never played with. They took the carnations home, and Kathleen"s green hair-ribbon came in beautifully for tying them up, which was hastily done on the doorstep.
Then discreetly Gerald knocked at the door of the drawing-room, where Mademoiselle seemed to sit all day.
"Entrez!" came her voice; and Gerald entered. She was not reading, as usual, but bent over a sketch-book; on the table was an open colour-box of un-English appearance, and a box of that slate-coloured liquid so familiar alike to the greatest artist in watercolours and to the humblest child with a sixpenny paintbox.
"With all of our loves," said Gerald, laying the flowers down suddenly before her.
"But it is that you are a dear child. For this it must that I embrace you no?" And before Gerald could explain that he was too old, she kissed him with little quick French pecks on the two cheeks.
"Are you painting?" he asked hurriedly, to hide his annoyance at being treated like a baby.
"I achieve a sketch of yesterday," she answered; and before he had time to wonder what yesterday would look like in a picture she showed him a beautiful and exact sketch of Yalding Towers.
"Oh, I say ripping!" was the critic"s comment. "I say, mayn"t the others come and see?" The others came, including Mabel, who stood awkwardly behind the rest, and looked over Jimmy"s shoulder.
"I say, you are clever," said Gerald respectfully.
"To what good to have the talent, when one must pa.s.s one"s life at teaching the infants?" said Mademoiselle.
"It must be fairly beastly," Gerald owned.
"You, too, see the design?" Mademoiselle asked Mabel, adding: "A friend from the town, yes?"
"How do you do?" said Mabel politely. "No, I"m not from the town.
I live at Yalding Towers."
The name seemed to impress Mademoiselle very much. Gerald anxiously hoped in his own mind that she was not a sn.o.b.
"Yalding Towers," she repeated, "but this is very extraordinary. Is it possible that you are then of the family of Lord Yalding?"
"He hasn"t any family," said Mabel; "he"s not married."