"On that tree—look. Creeping up the trunk."
Mousie fled in the direction indicated, and Jock—about to
follow—stopped short. Miss Baynes was coming over the grass with a
letter in her hand. And this was India Mail day.
"Only one for me," she said cheerfully.
Jock looked dismayed, for no week had yet gone by without a letter for
himself, and this meant no small disappointment. Judith sat down by his
side.
"No, not one for you this time. Your father and mother were both too
busy to write, so I have come to tell you the news."
"Is Mummie quite well?"
"No, she has been ill, and not well for some weeks before that.
And—there are changes of plan, Jock."
She paused for a moment, and Jock waited with a puzzled look.
"Your father's regiment has been ordered to another station, a good
way off, not a very healthy place, I am sorry to say. And the doctor
forbids your mother to go with him. So your father must not think of
taking her there, and he has decided that the best thing for her to do
is to come home, at all events for a year. Perhaps she may even stay
till he has his next leave, and can come too. And by this time she is
on her way, really on her way. Isn't that delightful? Her passage was
taken before she wrote."
Jock sat as if dazed. He could hardly believe his own ears, the news
was so utterly unexpected. When he tried to speak, the words somehow
would not come, and he could only give a choked laugh. Aunt Judith put
her arms round him.
"It is almost 'too' good news, is it not? But it is real, Jock. Won't
we give her a welcome?"
Jock tried hard to say something, as Aunt Judith seemed waiting for an
answer. "It's—it's—it's—" was all he could get out. Aunt Judith gave
him a kiss.
"Now you are going to be all right; and we have got to make ready for
her. No end of things to be done."
"Will she—come here?"
"Of course she will. This is her home and yours too, and she will stay
as long as she likes. I don't know how soon she may arrive, exactly,
but it cannot be long. When she wrote, she was leaving in a few days.
She shall have the big spare-room next to yours. You will like that."
Jock nodded emphatically.
Judith was watching him. "I think you had better have a run in the
garden," she said. "Suppose you find Mousie."
Jock gladly obeyed. He jumped up and fled, but not the way Mousie had
gone.
Judith Baynes went to her mother. "Curious, sensitive little fellow he
is," she said. "I thought he would simply shout for joy."
Grannie knew better. She understood the nature of Jock's devotion to
his mother, and she knew that the joy had been too deep for shouting.