Part 28 (2/2)
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 hairnowadays
And after you're forty I don't see that ita 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 bedroos triu in her excite--it was really very difficult to keep pace with a Ti Aunt Mary told reen diamond made h will be our uncle My goodness!”
The tale of the Des dick that Major Cah the inventor, but he still refused to share Mollie's conviction that there was a roirls are so jolly sentimental,”
he said ied 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 gaolf than he does, and even Bemister says ree with Mollie,” said Jerry, trying to look roo-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, as 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 andher serviceable blue knickers, fros, suitably clad in black s and lace-up shoes Her bobbed hair was for the s spread out on either side of her No one could have looked less roestion He cheered up slightly
”Anyho perhaps we can find out a few things--what the blood was, and how rich the diamond-mine made them”
”And if Grizzel h ever invented an aeroplane”
”He's in the RAF,” Jerry reave us”
This reminder cheered dick up still more If his favourite aunt had the bad taste to throw over a pro so wishy-washy as a lover, it was consoling to know that the wisher- washer ht 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 crean 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 veryat aunt The place where she usually sat looked extraordinarily eht, 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- somehow more lonely than she had done before the boys ca-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 here 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 ide and seated herself sideways on the sill, heedless of the raindrops that blew against her face and blouse For a long tiarden 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 dohen she ran out to -saw puzzle was tidied away, and the sofa cushi+ons sat in a pri about them to sho often a kind hand had tucked the invalid's back The volume of Shakespeare still lay on a side-table, and re sorry for s--! I will go upstairs and change my frock and tidy my hair, and then write to Mother And when the boys co to do It is si 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 hed as she went slowly upstairs, ”with Yesterday and To- 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 s Aunt Mary that all Mollie's depression vanished in the twinkling of an eye She hurried across the roo
”Why--how pretty you haveThat is sweet of you, for I want you to look your very best this evening I have a h, you naughty girl? I don't see how you can possibly have guessed, and I aain as she returned her aunt's hug: ”It was not so frightfully difficult to guess, after what you said about the green diaot it on! It _is_ lovely, isn't it? I think it is _just_ as beautiful--” Mollie stopped in so I ever saw If I ever get engaged I should like one exactly the sa you a little in 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 gotabout people in love, I can tell you!” Mollie nodded her head wisely ”I a Rosalind, but I'm not _quite_ so blind as a bat is, and I came up with Major Campbell this afternoon”
”Deardreadfully grown-up, Mollie I hope you don't--that you don't think h 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 coot_ to be friends”
Half an hour later three exceedingly tidy and rather prih”, who surveyed thelasses 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 Tiave no further sign of it, nor could the children see h in this keen-eyed, white-haired, brown-skinned stranger