ANTE-PRANDIAL VISITORS
He looked and beheld a small maiden clad in a holland frock, with a
white linen hat on the back of her gold-brown curls, instead of being
set in orthodox fashion upon her head. Her white shoes and socks, fresh
with the morning, were a little reddened with walking through the
"Tenby" garden, which, as Pauline had borne witness, contained no grass
whatever.
Just behind her was a small boy, sitting very firmly on a little red
tricycle.
"Hello!" said Hugh; "very glad to see you, I'm sure. Friends who look
you up in the low ebb of the hours before breakfast are friends indeed.
Come along up, both of you, and tell me your names."
But Lynn stood loyal and steadfast at the foot of the steps, while she
put the first necessary and searching question that was his due.
"Have you had whooping cough?" she said.
Hugh clutched his hair. He told her he was searching himself through all
the crannies of his boyhood years. Yes, he remembered. He _had_
undergone the affliction. There was a birthday party away back twenty,
thirty, forty years through the mists, and _she_ would have been at it,
with her hair done in two little plaits and tied with blue ribbon. And
he had to stay away because he had whooping cough.
Lynn looked very much relieved.
"What a good thing!" she said. "It is very seldom you get it twice, so
we shan't hurt you."
"No," he said gravely, looking down on them, "you really don't look as
if you would hurt me--much. But won't you come on the verandah? And can
the gentleman alight by himself?"
Lynn came up the steps a little shyly.
But Max, though he got off his tricycle, looked a bit worried.
"He won't stand," he said. "Will you lend me your hank'fust to tie him
to the post? he's a lood horse."
"He means a blood horse," explained Lynn in a low tone; "he always
pretends his tricycle is a race-horse."
Hugh lent the handkerchief--even offered to assist in the tying.
"I'd like to have given him a feed, poor old Trike," said Max, "only--"
and he looked regretfully around the garden--"you've no grass, have
you?"
"I've no grass," said Hugh; "but did you never try him on white daisies?
It wouldn't do, of course, to feed common horses on them, but a blood
steed like yours, why, it would make his coat shine like varnish."
Max's eyes grew brilliant at the notion, and he rattled his charger up
to a bank near, that was white with the flowers, and stuck the thing's
head into it and fed him with handfuls of petals.
"Why, why," he shouted, "he's getting shinier every minute--and his
mane's growing longer and longer."
From that moment he regarded Hugh as a man and a brother.
But Lynn had got to business.
"No," she said when offered a chair--"oh, no, thank you, we can't
stay--Miss Bibby doesn't know we've come. But will you please deal with
Larkin?"
"Deal with Larkin?" Hugh repeated.
"Yes, he's Octavius Smith, not Septimus, and much better. Mamma deals
with him, and his bacon is only elevenpence, and he'll always bring your
letters, too."
"Bacon!" said Hugh, hungrily. "I'd deal with any one who has bacon if it
is fried and eggs are thrown in with it."
"Oh," said Lynn, "he never throws them; they're always packed very
carefully in sawdust. And he doesn't mind how often he comes with the
things you've forgotten, and he gives you rides on his horse, and
everything. He's really _much_ better than that horrid Howie, and he
does so want to get a piano for Blanch and Emma, and buy out Octavius
and Septimus, and put his mother in, because she works too hard on the
farm. You will deal with him, won't you?"
By dint of a few questions Hugh put himself in possession of the facts,
and found out that his visitors were also his nearest neighbours. He
discovered, too, that he would have been called upon by the whole
quartet, but that it had been considered, in family conclave, that four
was perhaps too great a number for a morning call. And further, it was
necessary for Miss Bibby to see some figures about the garden. So the
question was solved by drawing lots, which fell, greatly to the disgust
of Pauline and Muffie, to Lynn and Max.
"I _know_ you'll go and spoil it all," said Pauline. "I could do it so
much better."
So Lynn was on her mettle and fought hard in Larkin's cause.
"I tell you what we'll do," said Hugh, struck with a brilliant idea,
"you shall come with me, and we'll go straight up to this Larkin's. You
have made me feel that I can exist no longer without some of the prime,
middle cuts of his bacon at elevenpence."
"Oh," said Lynn, "Miss Bibby!" She was torn between Larkin and duty.
"Oh, of course, we'll go and ask permission first," said Hugh; "and we
might leave Trike behind, eh, Max? After a feed like that he'll want a
rest."
Away they went out of the gate and across the road.
Miss Bibby was down at the gate, fluttering with vexation. She had just
found out that two of her naughty charges had actually dared to go and
trouble the sacred peace of the famous novelist, and before he could
have breakfasted!
She positively could hardly keep the tears back.