VIVIAN’S LESSON

VIVIAN’S LESSON

VIVIAN’S LESSON

By
ELIZABETH W. GRIERSON
Author of
‘Children’s Tales from Scottish Ballads,’
‘The Children’s Book of Edinburgh,’ &c.
WITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS
by
Hilda Cowham

LONDON AND EDINBURGH
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LIMITED
Philadelphia: J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1907

Edinburgh:
Printed by W. & R. Chambers, Limited.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

VIVIAN’S LESSON.

CHAPTER I.
WHAT BEGAN IT.

‘COME on, Vivian. It is high time we were going home; you know we promised mother that we would come off the ice at half-past four.’

‘Well, so we will; but it is only five-and-twenty past now, so we have plenty of time for one turn more. Come on, old stupid; you are always frightened of being late;’ and the younger of the speakers, a brown-eyed, mischievous-looking lad of about eleven, swung off with his three companions, leaving his brother standing watching them, a troubled look on his face.

He hated to make a fuss, and he did not want to leave the ice a moment sooner than he could help; but a promise is a promise, and he had given his word that they would be ready to leave the pond at the half-hour. It was later than they were generally allowed to stay; but it was Saturday afternoon, and there were signs of a thaw, so, as the ice might not last till Monday, their father had agreed to an extra half-hour on condition that they left the ice punctually and hurried home.

Vivian had given his word readily enough, and had meant to keep it; but now, as he flew round and round the pond, crying ‘Just one turn more,’ he seemed to have forgotten all about his promise.

Ronald sat down and took off his skates, then stepped on the path, and stood buckling them together.

‘Come on, Vivi,’ he entreated. ‘It is the half-hour now, and you know how anxious mother will be.’

‘All right,’ said Vivian a little sulkily, ‘I suppose I must; but it is an awful nuisance, when we may not have such lovely ice all winter again.’

‘I should think so,’ struck in Fergus Strangeways. ‘I am thankful that father doesn’t make us come in so soon. Why, the moon will be up in no time, and we will stay on quite late. Captain Laing and he are coming down before dinner, and Captain Laing promised to show us how to cut the “Figure Eight.”’

‘How jolly!’ said Ronald a little wistfully, while Vivian bent his head over his straps and pretended not to hear.

‘Couldn’t you stay, really?’ asked Charlie Strangeways, Fergus’s elder brother; ‘you could come in and have tea with us. I dare say Dr Armitage would know where you were; it is going to be lovely moonlight, and it isn’t as if we were to be alone all the time. I don’t suppose that he would have minded if he had known that the dad and Captain Laing were coming.’

‘Oh, do let us stay, Ronald! I’m sure father wouldn’t mind. You know he did say that he would have taken us out by moonlight himself if he had not been so busy,’ pleaded Vivian.

‘No, Charlie,’ said Ronald firmly. ‘It is very good of you to ask us, and it would have been splendid fun; but father didn’t know about your father and Captain Laing, and he would wonder where we were. Besides, we promised.—So hurry up, Vivian.’

‘What a stick you are, Ronald!’ said Fergus; ‘you can’t change a bit, even when circumstances change. Just because Dr Armitage said that you couldn’t be out alone here after dark, you spoil all the fun by going off, although it is very different now that father and Captain Laing are coming.’

‘Don’t be stupid, Fergus,’ put in Charlie good-naturedly. ‘If they promised, they must go. Besides, it is a long way over to Holmend; it is easy for us with our house close by.’

Charlie was fifteen, and a public school boy, so his word carried weight with it, and his brother was silent, while Vivian took up his skates more cheerfully.

‘We’ll see you in the beginning of the week,’ went on Charlie; ‘we are going to practise shooting on Tuesday if the frost doesn’t hold, we have got such jolly little pistols from Uncle Don; they carry quite a long way, and one can kill a bird with them. You must come over and bring yours; the Doctor is going to give you a pair for Christmas, isn’t he?’

Poor Vivian turned hot all over. If there was one thing in the world he was frightened of, it was being laughed at. As a rule, the boys were at liberty to choose their Christmas presents; and when, a fortnight before, Fergus had told him of his uncle’s intended present, he had instantly agreed to ask his father for the same, and great had been his disappointment and dismay when his request met with a grave refusal.

‘A pistol for your Christmas present! Not if I know it, my boy. What! Fergus and Vere and Charlie going to have them? Well, if I mistake not, they will be in my hands shortly. No, no; if their father likes to risk their lives, that is no reason why I should risk yours. Now, don’t look so glum; I know what I am talking about. If you had seen the case I saw over at Whitforth the other day: a lad older than either Ronald or you had got hold of one of these pistols, and it went off in his little brother’s face. I don’t want to harrow your feelings, but,’ and the Doctor’s voice dropped, and he spoke sadly, ‘that poor little chap will never be able to see again. No; I’ll give you anything you like, in reason, for your Christmas present, but a pistol is out of the question.’

At the time the explanation had been sufficient, but now Vivian’s eager little spirit felt very rebellious.

Fergus Strangeways was just a year older than he was, and surely he was as capable of being careful as Fergus. How Fergus and Vere would laugh at him if they knew the whole story! He flashed a warning look at Ronald, but Ronald did not seem to understand.

‘We may come out to watch,’ he said in his quiet voice; ‘but father won’t let us have pistols yet. He says we are too young. He has promised to give us proper guns when we are sixteen. He will not let us shoot before that.’

The pitying looks on his companions’ faces were quite lost on Ronald, who was only thinking of his promise to be home in good time; but they stung Vivian even more than the words that followed.

‘What a nuisance it must be to be so well looked after! You’ll grow into regular muffs if you don’t look out.’

‘I would give you a licking for that, just to judge if the symptoms are beginning, but I haven’t time to-night,’ said Ronald, with a laugh, conscious that none of the boys could stand up against him; and he walked off whistling through the woods, followed by Vivian, who was fuming with rage and injured pride.

‘What made you go and give me away like that?’ he asked presently. ‘You know there is a talk of our going to Aunt Dora’s next week. I know, anyhow, because mother had a letter, and if only you had held your tongue I would have said that very likely we would be away from home, and they need never have known anything about father not letting us have these pistols. Now Fergus will go all over the place laughing at us for a couple of babies;’ and he kicked at the fallen leaves viciously in his vexation.

‘As if I minded what Fergus Strangeways says!’ retorted Ronald scornfully; ‘why, he’s the veriest little ass going. He may get a pistol, but I bet you a sixpence that he daren’t let it off, in spite of all his bluster. Besides, I knew nothing about any invitation to Aunt Dora’s; and if I had, I wouldn’t have been such a sneak as to pretend that that was the reason that we couldn’t go to shoot with them. Of course it is a nuisance. I would have liked a pistol as well as you; but father would not have hindered us having one if he had not had good reasons, and now that he has promised us that lovely camera I’m sure we can’t grumble.’

‘That’s all very well for you,’ growled Vivian; ‘you always were a bit of a muff, with your music, and your photographs, and your collections. “The paragon” the other boys call you behind your back, for they say that you haven’t enough spirit in you to do anything wrong.’

‘They had better say it to my face then, and I’ll give them what for, and you too for listening to such rot,’ said Ronald hotly; and then he laughed at his own vehemence. ‘Don’t let us quarrel on Christmas Eve,’ he went on pleasantly; ‘I’ll race you across the meadow.’

They set off at a run, and by the time they had reached the garden gate, hot and breathless, they had almost forgotten the cause of their anger.

‘There is mother at the window, and Dorothy,’ cried Vivian, waving his cap. ‘Doesn’t a lit-up room look jolly and comfortable when one is outside? After all, I am rather glad that we didn’t stay any longer at the lake, for I am awfully hungry, and I expect there is a scrumptious tea in the schoolroom.’

As they went into the hall of the long, low red house, a little figure in white ran out to meet them.

‘Hurry, quick!’ she lisped, ‘we’s going to have tea wif muvver, an’ then we’s going to dec’rate. Black has brought in such a lot of green stuff, heaps an’ heaps, all p’ickles. Dorothy knows, ’cause she hurted her fingers.’

‘Dorothy was well warned, so it was her own fault,’ said a clear voice behind her, and Mrs Armitage appeared in the hall. Tall, slim, and graceful, with a wealth of rippling hair and a sweet pale face, it was no wonder that to the boys mother was the centre of their world.

‘Quickly, boys, run upstairs, get off those dirty boots, and get ready for tea. Father has been called out, and may not be home till quite late, so I will have it with you in the schoolroom, and afterwards we will try to get the hall decorated before he comes back. You know how he loves to see the greenery.’

After tea, Ellen the housemaid was pressed into the service, so the decorations went on merrily; and as Vivian stood on a ladder fastening up the wreaths of bright holly which his mother’s quick fingers wove so rapidly, while little Dorothy ran about, proud in the belief that she was helping every one, he thought quite pityingly of the Strangeways, who had no mother or little sister, although they might possess pistols and skate in the moonlight while he had to come home.

CHAPTER II.
AN INVITATION.

CHRISTMAS Day dawned clear and bright. All prospects of a thaw seemed to be gone, for the frost had been very keen during the night, and every little twig on the trees glittered in the sunshine as if it were set with diamonds.

‘What a day for skating!’ said Ronald at breakfast-time, after good-mornings and good wishes had been passed round. ‘It almost makes one wish that Christmas had not fallen on a Sunday this year.’

‘Oh Ronnie!’ said little Dorothy aghast. ‘You touldn’t go skating to-day. Tink of the pudding, and we’s going to have ’sert. I saw muvver putting it out—oranges, an’ nuts, an’ ’nannas.’

‘Yes; but, Pussy, Christmas dinner is like the frost, it doesn’t last for ever,’ said Ronald, lifting his little sister into her place between his mother’s chair and his own, while everyone laughed at her remark.

‘Never mind,’ said Mrs Armitage, ‘even if it had been a week-day—what with church, and dinner, and presents—there would not have been much time for skating; besides,’ glancing out of the window as she spoke, ‘I do not think that it will last like this all day. I fancy we will have a fresh fall of snow ere night. Here comes father, so you may begin, boys.’

Dr Armitage was a pleasant-looking man, of about middle age, with a kind, open face, and keen gray eyes. The likeness between him and his eldest son would have told a stranger at once what relationship there was between them.

‘Well, boys,’ he said cheerfully, turning over a pile of letters as he spoke, ‘has mother told you the news yet?’

‘What news?’ they asked eagerly, while their mother shook her head in mock displeasure.

‘Oh Jack, you cannot keep a secret!’ she said, laughing. ‘I did not mean to tell them till after church. It will keep running in their heads all through the service. However, there is no help for it now.—How would you like to go to London, boys? To Aunt Dora’s, for a whole week by yourselves?’

‘To Aunt Dora’s, mother? Has she asked us? Oh yes, I remember, Vivian said’—— Ronald broke off abruptly.

Vivian’s remark of the previous afternoon about an invitation to Aunt Dora’s had flashed into his mind, and he was just going to ask him how he had heard the news when a frightened, warning look on his brother’s face checked him.

‘Oh, how jolly!’ he went on, in some embarrassment, after a moment’s hesitation; ‘we have never been away ourselves before. Will you let us go, mother?’

His mother did not seem to notice his confusion, nor the puzzled look which he wore as he relapsed into silence, and sat watching his brother, who was talking rapidly, his eager little face flushed and his eyes sparkling.

‘Yes, I think so,’ she replied, ‘if you promise to be very good boys. You are old enough now to be trusted away from home alone, so father and Dorothy and I must make up our minds to a quiet house for a week, for I wrote to Aunt Dora yesterday to say that you will be at Victoria at four o’clock on Monday afternoon.’

Breakfast was finished amidst much excited discussion as to what should be taken in the way of garments and portmanteau. A listener would have thought that the boys were going to America at least; but to lads of eleven and thirteen a first visit to London alone is a treat indeed.

As they were running upstairs to get ready for church, Mrs Armitage laid her hand on Vivian’s shoulder and drew him into her room.

‘What did Ronald mean at breakfast by saying that you had told him about Aunt Dora’s invitation, Vivian?’ she asked. ‘How did either of you come to hear of it?’

The little boy rubbed the point of his toe uneasily on the carpet.

‘Ronald is always thinking that I say things,’ he answered evasively, ‘and getting a fellow into a scrape. If he would only mind his own business.’

‘Nay, Vivian, that is unjust; you know Ronald would be the last person in the world to get you into a scrape; and in this case there is no scrape to get into, unless you choose to make one. If by any chance you found out anything about the invitation, as it seems you must have done, it probably was a mistake.’

‘Yes, mother, that was just it, it was a mistake,’ said Vivian, interrupting her eagerly. ‘There was a letter of Aunt Dora’s lying on your desk, and I saw a bit of it when you sent me to get those receipts.’

‘But you must have taken time to read it, did you not?’ said his mother gravely; ‘that could not be a mistake. I thought perhaps you had heard father talking to me about it; we sometimes hear things that are not intended for us to hear, but then the honourable thing to do is to say frankly that you did hear it. To read a letter that is not intended for you is quite a different matter. I did not think a son of mine would have done that.’

The tears came into Vivian’s eyes. He loved his mother passionately, and any appeal from her touched his proud little heart.

‘It really was a mistake at first, mother. When I was looking about for those receipts, I saw the letter lying spread out, and I could not help seeing one sentence. “I hope you will let the boys,” it began, and I did so much want to know what it was that Aunt Dora wanted you to let us do, so I took up the piece of paper and looked over on the other side. I was sorry in a moment, but I did not like to tell.’

‘No, that is just it,’ said his mother. ‘You did not like to tell, and so you were tempted at breakfast this morning to talk as if you knew nothing about it. That was not exactly telling a lie, Vivian; but do you not think that it was acting one? I think that is your besetting sin, my boy. You know that we all have a sin that we must specially fight against, and I want you to try and fight against yours. You have not the moral courage to confess when you have done something wrong, but you try to shuffle and explain things away, so as to hide what you have done. You have plenty of courage in other ways, quite as much, if not more, than Ronald. You have the kind of courage that would make you fight, or face danger; but there is a higher kind of courage than that, and I want you to try and gain it. I mean the courage that will tell the truth, even when the truth is not pleasant, and when you may get laughed at for telling it, and which will own up to a fault rather than try to hide it.

‘You are so quick and impulsive, you often do things without thinking, not because you do not mean to do what is right, but because you do not take time to see that it is wrong; and that leads to the worse sin of covering up the matter and telling half-lies to shield yourself. Now, as this is Christmas Day, we won’t say anything more about it; only, dearie, try and remember who came this day to help us—to save us from our sins. That is what His name means.’

‘Yes, mother,’ said Vivian, beginning to fidget with all a healthy boy’s dislike to a ‘sermon,’ and his mother let him go with a sigh.

‘Will I ever be able to train him to be a brave and honourable man,’ she thought to herself, ‘with his quick, ambitious nature, his love of being first, coupled with his moral cowardice and fear of being laughed at?’

They were a merry party as they walked across the snowy meadow to church. Little Dorothy, who looked like a white woolly ball in her fur coat and cap, clinging to her father with one hand and to Ronald with the other, as they gave her slides along the slippery footpath, while Vivian hovered round, now sliding himself, now threatening to snowball the others, all trace of the late conversation seeming to have vanished from his mind. But the good thoughts came back again in the old church, where there was an atmosphere of sober gladness, its gray stone pillars being wreathed with glistening holly, and brightly coloured banners hanging over the pulpit and choir-stalls.

The rector took for his text the very verse that his mother had spoken about; and as the old man talked simply to the congregation of the battle that each one of us has to wage against the sin in ourselves before we can hope to fight successfully against the sin that is in the world, and how the Bethlehem Babe came to help and save us, Vivian, sitting in his dark corner of the old-fashioned pew, gave his mother’s hand a little squeeze, and, crushing his face against her cloak, made more good resolutions for the future than ever he had done before in the whole course of his happy, careless, light-hearted life.

CHAPTER III.
GOING TO LONDON.

WHO does not know the excitement of a first visit away from home, unaccompanied by any grown-up person?

The following morning the boys were downstairs twenty minutes before any one else, and it seemed as if Ellen would never bring in the coffee; while so many important messages came to take up their father’s attention, it appeared as if it must be at least ten o’clock before breakfast and prayers were over, and they were at liberty at last to run upstairs to the schoolroom, where nurse was busy folding their clothes into their father’s portmanteau, which had been called into service for the occasion.

And yet—when that was done, and the straps all fastened up, and Ronald had run down to the surgery to get a clean white label, and had printed ‘Armitage, Victoria, London,’ on it in his best printing, and Vivian had tied it on, while little Dorothy watched the proceedings in silent admiration—there remained nearly four hours before the time came for an early lunch and the drive to the station.

The hours passed somehow, however, and at last the carriage was brought round, and the portmanteau was tucked away beside Black on the box, while father packed the boys inside, with mother and Dorothy, who were going to see them off. Just at the last moment he slipped two little paper packets into their hands, telling them not to open them until they were in the train. Then he shut the carriage door and nodded to Black, and they had actually started at last.

They felt quite important at the quiet little station, when mother went to get the tickets, and old Timms the porter came up, and, touching his cap, asked ‘Where for, sir?’ and Ronald answered, ‘London, Victoria,’ in a careless tone as if going to London were quite an everyday event. Old Timms noticed the tone, and his eyes twinkled, but he only touched his cap again, and said, ‘Very good, sir,’ and put the portmanteau beside the other luggage which was waiting ready for the London train.

Perhaps their hearts failed them a little, although they both would have scorned the suggestion, as the train came roaring round the curve, and mother gave them a last kiss, saying, ‘Give my love to Aunt Dora, and all the others, and enjoy yourselves, and be my own good boys; and, Vivian, remember our talk yesterday.’ Then the guard hustled them into a carriage, the door banged, and the train moved on.

Now they had time to think about the little packets which their father had given them, and on opening them each was found to contain two half-crowns. This discovery quite raised their spirits again, for what may not be bought for five shillings in the wonderful shops in London!

It was a foggy afternoon, and Victoria Station looked very big, and dark, and bustling, as the train steamed into it; and as a porter threw open the door of their carriage, and they stepped on to the platform, the boys felt somewhat bewildered with the crowd of people who were running about in all directions.

‘Supposing Aunt Dora has mistaken the train? I don’t see her anywhere,’ said Ronald, who was always rather anxious-minded.

‘Oh, we’ll just take a cab,’ said Vivian confidently; ‘that’s the way people do, and give the man the address—“Eversley, Hampstead Heath.” He will take us there all right. Hadn’t we better go and look after our portmanteau? The porters are taking all the luggage out of that van. Some one may steal ours.’

‘No; no one would dare do that; but, all the same, we had better see to it.—Here, porter!’

But the words were too gentle for the hurrying man to heed, or perhaps he had more important people in his eye, for he took no notice, and the boys were standing, feeling rather helpless, with a homesick longing for old Timms’s honest red face, when Aunt Dora’s cheery voice sounded just behind them.

‘Well, boys, how are you? Did you think that I had forgotten you? Not a very cheerful welcome, was it—eh, Vivian—to let you arrive all by yourselves? But you must blame the fog and not me. It was quite clear when I started, and it is so foggy in some parts now that we had to drive very slowly. I am afraid it will take us quite a long time to get home; but never mind, you will enjoy your tea all the more when you get it.’

If it took a long time to get home, the boys hardly noticed it. It was impossible to be shy with Aunt Dora. She was so bright and full of fun, and so eager to hear all the home news—how mother and little Dorothy were, and how father’s patients were getting on. She was Dr Armitage’s sister, and had lived with him when he first settled at Sittingham, and she took as great an interest now in the old women at the almshouses and the new babies in the village as she had done in the old days when she had carried soup to one and milk to the other.

‘Here we are at last!’ she exclaimed, interrupting a graphic description which Vivian was giving of the latest village concert; and as she spoke the carriage turned in at an ivy-covered lodge, and drew up in front of a large square house which looked as if it were capable of holding a very large party indeed.

The instant the carriage stopped, the front door opened, and two eager faces appeared, peeping out behind the trim parlour-maid, who came down the steps to open the door and take the wraps.

‘Isobel and Claude have been on the lookout, you see,’ laughed their mother. ‘Their excitement has known no bounds ever since they knew that you were coming. But I don’t see Ralph; I expect he will be deep in a book as usual. Run in out of the cold, boys, and Ann will bring your portmanteau.’

‘We thought that you were never coming,’ said Isobel, taking possession of her cousins at once, and leading the way upstairs to the schoolroom. ‘Claude and I have been watching for the carriage ever since five o’clock, and it is a quarter to six now. Aren’t you just famishing for your tea? It is all ready in the schoolroom, and I’ve to pour it out.’

‘What will Miss Ritchie say to that?’ asked Ronald, laughing. ‘You remember you told us last Easter how particular she was about spots on the tablecloth, and a teapot is rather a heavy thing.’

‘She’s gone,’ said Claude, who was contentedly bringing up the rear, with a broad grin on his rosy face, ‘right away to Wales to spend her holidays. Mother said if we were very good we might do without a governess this Christmas, for I’m eight now you see, and that is quite big.’

‘Who is quite big?’ said a mocking voice as they entered the schoolroom, where a blazing fire and a table covered with delicious home-baked cakes were awaiting them, and a tall, thin boy, with a somewhat peevish expression, rose from a corner where he had been poring over a book, and came forward to shake hands. This was Ralph, the eldest of Mrs Osbourne’s children. He was just a little older than Vivian, though he might have been Ronald’s age from his very grown-up manner. As a little boy he had been very delicate, and had been abroad a great deal with an old French governess who had taught his mother when she was a child. He was at a boarding-school at Eastbourne now; and, having the idea in his own mind that he had seen a great deal of the world, he was rather inclined to patronise his cousins, who had always lived in the country, and to whom even a visit to London was an event.

They, on their part, did not like him nearly so much as they did Isobel and Claude, and could have told many a story of the want of pluck which he showed in outdoor games; but they admired him for the way in which he could ‘jabber French,’ as Vivian termed it, and for the grown-up books which he read, and politeness made them careful not to stir up questions which might lead to quarrels.

Isobel they adored. She was such a jolly little tomboy, who could climb trees and play cricket as well as any boy, and yet she was such a dainty little maiden, with a very tender conscience and a peace-loving disposition, who often smoothed down angry words which might otherwise have led to blows. ‘My little peacemaker,’ her mother called her, and Ronald thought to himself, as they sat at tea, that the name was well chosen, as he saw the quick colour flash into Claude’s rosy, determined little face at some scoffing remark of Ralph’s, and noticed how cleverly Isobel changed the subject by talking about the party which they were to have the next night, and to which they were looking forward with eager anticipation.

‘There is to be a Christmas tree,’ she explained, pausing in her eagerness, with the teapot in her hand, in the middle of pouring out tea. ‘Last year we had a cinematograph, and the year before a conjurer; but this year mother has promised us a real Christmas tree, with candles all lit up, and presents on it for every one.’

‘Yes; and I think it is ready in the little drawing-room now,’ said Claude, ‘for we have been forbidden to go in. We mustn’t even go into the big drawing-room; and I saw Jane carrying in heaps and heaps of parcels.’

‘Did you?’ said Aunt Dora, who had come into the room unobserved: ‘and what do you think will be inside the parcels, pray?’

‘Presents, heaps and heaps of them,’ replied Claude, his big blue eyes growing bigger at the thought.

‘But not all for you,’ said Ralph, in his calm, superior way, which always made Ronald feel inclined to punch him; ‘there’s a microscope for me, and a writing-case for Isobel, and books or something or other for Ronald and Vivian; and for the little ones, about seven or eight years old, you know, there are tins of toffee. I saw cook making it.’

‘Oh mother, there isn’t!’ said Claude, looking ready to cry at the suggestion. ‘I wrote to Santa Claus and told him I wanted a man-of-war, and I posted it in the chimney myself, and it went right up.’

Mrs Osbourne laughed as she patted him on the head.

‘Ralph doesn’t know what he is talking about,’ she said. ‘Perhaps he will not get his microscope, and perhaps you will get your man-of-war; but you must wait till to-morrow night to see. I cannot tell you beforehand.’

CHAPTER IV.
THE CHRISTMAS TREE.

THE next day was a busy one. In the morning the gardener brought in a load of evergreens; and while Aunt Dora and the maids prepared the long table in the dining-room, and superintended Davis the coachman as he carried all the drawing-room furniture into the study and the hall, with the help of the gardener’s boy, so as to leave the room clear to dance in, the children set to work and transformed the hall into a perfect bower.

They twisted ivy round the balusters and polished oak stair-rails, and hung it in festoons over the sides of the gallery which ran round three sides of the house. They framed the pictures with glistening holly and scarlet berries, and crowned the great marble statue in the hall with a crown of mistletoe.

It was a very tired and grubby little party who gathered round the dinner-table, which to-day was set in the servants’ hall; but Aunt Dora’s pleased appreciation of their efforts made up for all the trouble; and after a quiet hour spent in the schoolroom over story-books they were quite fresh again at three o’clock, when Mary came up to help Claude to dress, and brush Isobel’s hair for her and tie her sash.

‘I wish we had Etons,’ said Vivian to his brother when they were alone in their own room, turning over his summer suit of dark-green cloth with rather a dissatisfied air. ‘I was in Ralph’s room washing my hands before dinner, and he has a proper suit, with gray trousers and a short coat with a peak at the back, just like those Charlie Strangeways had last summer.’

‘That’s because he’s at school,’ said Ronald, who was splashing away vigorously at the washhand-stand. ‘Probably a lot of the fellows will have Etons on; I know they wear them in London a lot. But I think these green suits of ours are rather nice; besides, it doesn’t matter what boys wear, and mother has promised to get us Etons for next summer. I say, won’t Isobel look a duck in that stunning white frock, with that pale-blue sash? I hope Dorothy will grow up as pretty as she is.’

‘Isobel is just perfect,’ said Vivian emphatically. ‘I hope Aunt Dora will let her come down to us again in spring for the Easter holidays; she will make the Strangeways look astonished. They were not at home the last time she came. They always laugh at girls, but they won’t laugh at her when they see how she plays cricket. She is not like the Lister girls, who daren’t catch a ball in case it hurts their fingers. I only wish Ralph were like her,’ he added, going back to the vexed question of clothes. ‘You should have seen his face when I told him that we had only our last year’s summer suits to wear. He muttered something about “country cousins,” and offered to lend me his last year’s suit. It is too little for him, but he said it would just do for me.’

‘And I hope you snubbed him well for his impudence. I tell you what, Vivi, he is our cousin, and we must be civil to him because of Aunt Dora and Uncle Walter and Claude and Isobel; but he is a cad, an out-and-out cad, with his airs and his conceit. So don’t let me find you copying him, or I’ll give you a good licking. Wear his old clothes indeed! You had better try it.’

Ronald spoke so sharply that Vivian, who had had a sneaking hope in his heart that his brother would agree to Ralph’s proposal, dropped the subject hastily, and began to scramble into the despised green suit in a very great hurry, feeling a little ashamed of himself as he did so for despising the clothes which his mother had chosen for him, and of which, until his conversation with Ralph, he had been not a little proud.

He quite forgot his momentary vexation, however, when Isobel, a slim little white fairy, with soft blue ribbons, knocked at the door to see if he were ready to go down and practise the minuet which he had promised to dance with her.

Mrs Armitage had made a point of having her boys taught to dance, for she always maintained that it taught them to hold themselves well, and hindered them from looking as if they did not know what to do with their arms and legs when they came into a room full of strangers. Vivian especially danced exceedingly nicely for a boy of his age, and later on, as Isobel and he went through the stately measures, bowing and curtsying to each other in the middle of the great drawing-room with its brilliant lights, they made such a pretty picture that there was quite a burst of applause from the grown-ups, who had come to look after the little ones and share the fun.

‘You did that splendidly, old fellow,’ whispered Ronald, with real brotherly pride, when the performance was over, and Vivian came up to the corner where he was standing along with some of the bigger boys. ‘I shall write and tell mother that you have taken all the ladies’ hearts by storm. I heard that old dame with the eye-glasses, who is standing next Aunt Dora, ask, “Who that exceedingly nice-looking boy is?”’

‘Fudge!’ said Vivian, laughing; but he was pleased all the same, for he felt that he had shown Ralph that even a ‘country cousin’ could do some things better than he could, in spite of the fact that he did not wear an Eton suit.

The event of the evening was the Christmas tree, and there was a breathless silence as all the children gathered in the drawing-room, and were arranged in rows, the little ones in front, before the drawn curtain which separated the two rooms.

There were mysterious whisperings going on behind the curtain, and stifled laughter; but at last the bell rang, and the lights were turned down, and in another moment the curtain flew back, and there stood the tree, blazing with coloured candles and laden with presents.

An old man, with snow-white hair and a long beard, stood beside it, wearing a white cloak which sparkled as if it were covered with hoar-frost. ‘Father Christmas!’ shouted all the children at once. ‘Three cheers for Father Christmas!’ while Claude, who, in his eagerness, had crawled very near the green tub in which the Christmas tree was planted, cried out in a tone of surprise, ‘Oh, it’s father; I know his boots.’

A roar of laughter greeted this discovery.

‘Hush, Claude,’ said his mother, catching the little fellow by his belt and swinging him back to his place beside the others. ‘Take care, or Santa Claus will have no present for you. He only brings them for the children who sit still in their places.’

Then Father Christmas held up his hand for silence, and made a little speech, telling them how glad he was to see them all, and how he hoped that they were enjoying themselves, and that they would all be good children in the year that was coming; then he took up a long white wand, with a hook at the end of it, and began to take down the presents from the tree and call out the names which were printed on them.

It seemed as if Aunt Dora must be a witch, for she had thought of just the right thing for every one. For the tiny tots there were woolly bears, and rabbits, and long-haired dolls; while for older children there were clever mechanical toys, useful glove-boxes and hand-bags, and prettily bound books. Ralph had his microscope, and Claude his man-of-war, while Ronald, who was fond of all country pursuits, hugged two beautifully bound volumes of British Birds in silent delight.

‘I see two Brownie kodaks; I do wish one of them would come to me,’ said Robin Earlison, a boy of about Vivian’s age, who was sitting next him. ‘I don’t want to be greedy; but I do want one badly, if only I could have the luck to get it. What do you want?’ he went on, trying to look as if he did not care when one of the coveted kodaks went to Pierce Dumot, a delicate-looking boy with a slight limp, who was sitting at the other end of the row. ‘But I expect you know what you are to get, for you are staying in the house, aren’t you?’

Vivian scarcely heard him. His eye had fallen on a toy pistol which was hanging on one of the lower branches. It was not quite so large as those which the Strangeways boys had got, but what joy it would be if it fell to his lot! He held his breath and sat very still as one after another of the children went up to get their presents. Seven, six, five—there were only four things left on the tree now—the other kodak, the pistol, a bright blue book, and a box of soldiers.

He felt hot all over with the suspense. The soldiers could not be for him, he was too big for them, so that left only three things. Now Santa Claus was unfastening the kodak. Ah, it was Robin’s name that was called, so Robin had got his heart’s desire; and now there only remained the blue book and the pistol.

He was so intent listening for the next name he forgot to rise and let Robin pass to his seat, and Robin, noting the strained look on his eager face, hoped that he was not disappointed because he had not got the kodak.

Now Father Christmas had the pistol in his hand, and was turning it over seeking for the name. Would he never find it? Vivian felt angry at the noise that the other boys, who had already received their presents, were making. But his suspense did not last long. In another moment his name was called out, and the wished-for toy was in his hand.

He turned it over and over in delight, examining every part of it, while some of the other boys stretched over the seats to admire it. Evidently a toy pistol was a coveted possession.

‘It’s not a very big one,’ said one lad, with rather a mean desire to depreciate a present which he had wished for, but which had not fallen to his lot.

‘All the better,’ said Ronald, who had left his seat and come round to see what his brother had got. ‘Father would not have let him use it if it had been bigger.’

‘It will shoot very well, all the same,’ broke in the good-natured Robin, relieved to find that it was not the kodak that his companion had been longing for. ‘My cousin had one like that, and he could shoot sparrows with it. He found it very useful in the spring, when they tried to eat up all the seeds that he had sown in the garden.’

‘Vivian Armitage. No, it is not for him. It is for Vivian Gray, who isn’t here. This book is for Vivi.’

It was Aunt Dora’s voice, and she looked over the boys’ clustering heads as she spoke. ‘No, Vivi dear, that is not for you,’ she said, stretching out her hand. ‘You are rather a little chap for that. I am afraid that mother would not thank me if I sent you home with such a dangerous toy. This book is for you; I think you will like it. It is one of Henty’s. Claude got it for a birthday present a year ago, and he was quite delighted with it.’

Poor Vivian! he handed back the pistol and took the book instead with the best grace he could; but it was a bitter disappointment, and Aunt Dora’s kind heart was troubled as she saw how his face fell, and with what difficulty he winked back the tears which were perilously near filling his eyes.

‘It serves me right,’ she thought, ‘for having such a thing on the tree, only I knew that Mr Gray had no objection to Vivian having it, and it took my fancy when I was buying the presents. I must try to remember to ask Jack if he would mind if I give Vivi one on his next birthday; he will be a year older then, and more careful.’

Thinking that a change of occupation would be the best thing to divert the little boy’s thoughts, she wrapped up the pistol with its accompanying box of caps, and calling Basil Gray, Vivian’s younger brother, she gave it to him, asking him to take it home, and give it to Vivian, who was in bed with a chill; then she proposed a game of charades, choosing Vivi for one of the actors; and as she saw his face brighten as he ran upstairs with the others to dress, she hoped that the disappointment was only temporary, and that by the next morning he would have forgotten all about it.

CHAPTER V.
A FALSE STEP.

BREAKFAST was late next morning, for it had been nearly midnight before the party was over and the last of the guests had gone, so Aunt Dora had made the welcome announcement, when she said good-night, that no one need be called before half-past eight, or be expected to be downstairs before nine o’clock. Isobel was dressed before that, however, and so was Vivian, and they amused themselves playing ‘touch’ round the gallery, making so much noise that at last Aunt Dora opened her bedroom door.

‘Parties do not seem to have any power to tire you two,’ she said, laughing. ‘I wish my bones were as free from aches; but I must have a little less noise when Claude comes in to say his prayers, so I think I shall set you to do something for me. It just wants five minutes till breakfast-time, and perhaps in these five minutes you could carry up all the things that were brought down for the charades from the cloakroom to the schoolroom. The maids will be busy putting the hall in order, and there will be so much dust. We can put them back in their places after breakfast.’

The two children ran obediently downstairs, followed by Ronald, who had just finished dressing; and by the time Anne appeared in the hall with the breakfast-tray, bringing with her a most tempting odour of bacon and eggs, the cloakroom was quite tidy, and the last armful of toys, rugs, and cloaks had been carried into the schoolroom.

‘I think we had better take up our caps and greatcoats, Vivi,’ said Ronald taking his own garments down from the peg where they were hanging. ‘You know mother told us to keep our things all together in our own bedroom, so that we might find them easily when we come to pack. Your things are all over the place already; I saw your woollen gloves in the schoolroom, and your silk neckerchief on the window-ledge in the back hall.’

‘What a nice time you would have if Miss Ritchie were here!’ laughed Isobel, trying to see how long she could hop on one foot without losing her balance; ‘she always fines us a halfpenny for everything that we leave about. She warns us once, then if we don’t put it away we have to pay the fine.’

‘I’m afraid that I’d lose an awful lot of money if mother did that to me,’ said Vivian. ‘Somehow I never can remember to put things in their right places. As for Ronald, I think he must have been born tidy, for he can always find anything he wants, even in the dark.’

‘You are much quicker, though,’ said Ronald, not to be outdone in brotherly generosity; ‘you can do things in half the time that I take to do them. But hurry up, old chap; run along and find your things, or the bell will ring before you get down again.’

‘All right,’ answered Vivian; and as he spoke he threw his coat over his arm, and ran across the front hall, and disappeared through the swing door which separated it from the back staircase, in order to gather together the rest of his belongings as he went upstairs.

But although Ronald had plenty of time to go upstairs and hang everything in his wardrobe in his leisurely way, and come down again and join the others in the dining-room before the breakfast-bell rang, it was fully five minutes before Vivian reappeared.

‘Whatever can he be doing?’ asked Uncle Walter, as he rapidly cut slices of bread and served out the bacon and eggs. ‘His coffee will be quite cold.’

‘Gathering all his things together, in case mother fines him a halfpenny for each of them,’ laughed Isobel. ‘I have frightened him by telling him what Miss Ritchie does to us.’

‘But you are a girl, and girls have always to learn to keep the house tidy,’ said Ralph in his lofty way. ‘It is of far more consequence for a woman to be tidy than for a man.—Isn’t it, mother?’

‘Certainly not,’ said his mother; ‘and if those are the notions that you are learning at St Chad’s we will have to put on the halfpenny fine in the holidays to counteract them. I expect you to be just as tidy as Isobel—tidier, in fact, because you are older.’

At this moment Vivian appeared, and his entrance put an end to the discussion, for every one began laughingly to ask him if it had taken him five minutes to hang up his coat, but he did not seem to be as ready with an answer as he generally was, and, slipping into his place between Ralph and Claude, he began to eat his breakfast hurriedly, as if to make up for lost time. He kept his face bent so steadily over his plate that no one noticed until breakfast was over that he had a big blue bruise on one of his temples, which looked as though he had struck his face against something sharp. It was little Claude who saw it first, and he cried out at once, in spite of Vivian’s hurried whisper to keep quiet.

‘Come here, mother, and see how Vivian has hurt himself; he has got a great bump over one of his eyes. Hadn’t he better have eau de Cologne on it?’

To Claude, the idea of being petted by mother, and having nice-smelling stuff put on his knocks and bruises, quite compensated for the pain of them, and he could not understand why Vivian tried to escape upstairs before his aunt came hurriedly from the kitchen, where she had gone to have an interview with cook.

‘Why, Vivi, boy,’ she said, drawing him to the light, and pressing her fingers gently over the ugly mark, ‘why did you not tell me of this, and have it seen to, when you came downstairs? However did you manage to do it?’

‘I slipped, and knocked it against the corner of the washstand in our room, Aunt Dora; and I am very sorry, but I broke the glass for drinking water out of. I knocked it on to the floor.’

‘Yes, and you must have upset the ewer too,’ said Ralph, who had been upstairs for a book, ‘for I heard Mary tell Anne that your carpet was soaking, and that you had scrubbed it up with one of mother’s best damask towels.’

Vivian’s face turned scarlet.

‘I’m very sorry,’ he stammered; ‘but the ewer got upset as well, and I did not know what to do. I never thought about the towel. But the ewer isn’t broken, Aunt Dora.’

Mrs Osbourne felt a little troubled. She had always tried to impress upon her own children that the straightforward way, when any mishap occurred, was to come to her at once, and tell her about it; and she could not help wishing that her little nephew had done this instead of saying nothing about the accident until it was found out, and he was compelled to do so, and then try to shrink from inquiries.

But, after all, it was rather an ordeal for a little boy to come down in a strange house and publicly own to having nearly swamped his bedroom, besides having broken a glass; so she contented herself by saying, as she bathed the wounded head, ‘It would have been better if you had told me at once, dear, and then I could have sent Mary to dry up the water; and, perhaps, if your head had been bathed at once there would not have been such a bump.’

She kissed him and sent him away, little dreaming how miserable the poor boy really was, or what a battle was going on in his heart.

In a moment of temptation he had taken a false step, a terribly false one, and that better self which dwells within us all was urging him to retrace it while yet there was time, and it was easy to do so. As he went upstairs to the schoolroom his mother’s words of the Sunday before came into his mind: ‘You have not got the courage to confess when you have done something wrong;’ and, child as he was, he felt the truth of them, and he wished he could make up his mind now to confess everything to Aunt Dora.

Not that it need seem like a confession at all, for he had only to tell her that he had found a parcel in his greatcoat-pocket which was not his, and which must have been put there by some one in mistake. If he ran into his bedroom for a moment, and took the parcel from its hiding-place and put it back in his coat-pocket, he need not tell her that he had intended to keep it, and had hidden it on the top of the wardrobe, and in so doing had tipped over the chair he was standing on and overturned the ewer.

For five long minutes he stood at the top of the stairs debating with himself. He even went the length of going into his room with the half-formed intention in his mind of getting down the parcel; but Mary the housemaid was in possession, and she spoke to him rather tartly.

‘Now, Master Vivian,’ she began, ‘be a good boy, and don’t go messing all over the place again just when I’ve got it all cleaned up.’

Colouring at the sharp words, and at the sight of the dark, wet patch on the carpet, Vivian drew back and went into the schoolroom.

There every one was busy, and took little notice of him. Ralph and Ronald were curled up in two basket-chairs by the fire, deep in books, while Isobel was writing a letter, and Claude was playing happily on the floor with his man-of-war.

‘Come into the bathroom and see how well she sails,’ he cried; but Vivian was in no mood to attend to him. The conflicting voices were too strong in his heart, and he went out and wandered restlessly downstairs again.

Aunt Dora had finished her business with the cook, and was now seated at her desk in the study, making out lists for the stores. Looking up, she caught sight of her little nephew’s white, anxious face.

‘Do you feel sick, dearie?’ she asked kindly, laying down her pen. ‘A bump like that is a nasty thing, and if you like you can lie down for a while. Come, and I will tuck you up on the couch, and we will not let any of the others in to make a noise until lunch-time.’

‘I’m not sick, thank you,’ said Vivian, drawing pictures slowly with his fingers on the window-pane; ‘but I want to tell you something, auntie.’

‘Yes, dearie?’

At that moment Anne appeared in the doorway. ‘If you please, mum, there’s a young gentleman in the hall who wishes to speak to you. It is one of the young gentlemen who were here last night, and I think he has lost something.’

Mrs Osbourne rose and left the room, and Vivian followed her, sick and miserable. He would fain not have gone at all, for he knew too well who it was, and what he wanted; but something within him compelled him to go and hear what was said.

As he expected, Basil Gray stood outside, a look of anxiety on his boyish face.

‘Good-morning, Mrs Osbourne. I’ve come very early, but mother sent me round. The fact is, I’m afraid that I have lost that parcel which you gave me to take home to Vivian—the pistol and caps, you know. It was awfully careless of me, and yet I can’t think how I lost it. I put it in my greatcoat-pocket in the cloakroom, as you told me, and I never thought anything more about it until I got home, and ran upstairs to give it to Vivian, and when I put my hand in my pocket it wasn’t there. Of course it may have fallen out on the way home, but it doesn’t seem likely; my pocket is too deep, and mother thinks that I may have put it in some one else’s pocket. There were some coats hanging in the cloakroom just like mine, almost the same, made of gray tweed. This is the coat I had on last night,’ and he unbuttoned it to let Mrs Osbourne see it better.

‘Why, it is almost exactly the same as those that Ronald and you have, Vivian,’ she said, stooping down to examine it. ‘It is just possible that Basil may have put it in one of your pockets. Run into the cloakroom, like a good boy, and see, and we will go upstairs, and send Ralph to search his coat, although I hardly think that you could put it there, Basil, for he has a dark-brown coat, quite different from this.’

Clearly Aunt Dora had forgotten that the coats had been carried upstairs in the morning, but Vivian did not remind her of the fact. He crept away into the cloakroom and waited there, feeling as he had never felt in his life before. He realised that he had lost the chance of retrieving that first wrong step, for he knew only too well that he would never have the courage now to confess that the pistol had been put in the wrong pocket, and that when he had found it there, as he was carrying his coat upstairs, the sudden temptation had been too strong for him, and that, almost without intending to keep it, he had hidden it where no one would dream of looking for it. At least he hoped so; but supposing Mary took it into her head to dust the top of the wardrobe? The very idea made him shiver; and, in case Aunt Dora might wonder why he was lingering downstairs, he started and ran out of the cloakroom so suddenly that he knocked up against Anne, who was dusting in the hall, and, muttering an apology, hurried up into the schoolroom.

‘We took our coats upstairs in the morning, Aunt Dora,’ he said breathlessly, ‘and I don’t see any parcel lying about.’

‘No,’ said his aunt; ‘if it had been downstairs the maids must have noticed it, and Ronald has just been searching his own pockets and yours, and it is not there.—So, I am afraid, Basil, you must either have dropped it on your way home, or else you have put it in some other boy’s coat. I will write and ask if any of them have found it, although I think if they have, they will be honourable enough to bring it back.’

‘Honourable enough!’ The words fell on Vivian’s ears like burning drops of lead, reminding him of some words which his father had once spoken when Ronald and he had been discussing what they meant to be when they were men.

‘Well, boys,’ Dr Armitage had said, putting his hands on their shoulders, ‘I may not have much money to leave you, but I will give you a good education, and after that you shall choose a calling for yourselves. I do not much mind what you are, as long as you grow up God-fearing, honourable men.’

Ronald, always slow to speak, had merely answered, ‘Yes, father, we’ll try to be that;’ but Vivian had hugged the Doctor in his impulsive way, and had promised readily what seemed to him an easy task.

Alas! what claim had he to the word ‘honourable’ now?

The thought stung him to the quick, and yet he had not the courage to slip downstairs to the study, after Basil had gone, and his aunt had resumed her writing, and finish the confession which Anne’s entrance had interrupted.

In spite of his self-loathing, it was a relief to him to think that the risk of discovery was averted in the meantime, for every one seemed satisfied that the pistol had not been lost in the house; so he tried recklessly to stifle his conscience, and presently, when they went out to play hide-and-seek in the garden, his voice was so loud and merry that Aunt Dora, watching them from the study window, wondered at the buoyancy of childhood, and thought with a smile of the miserable white-faced little lad of an hour ago.

CHAPTER VI.
A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK.

THE grounds round Eversley were unusually large for a suburban house, and there was plenty of room for a good romping game.

First came the garden with the greenhouses and vineries, with a large tennis-green at the side, then two small paddocks almost large enough to be honoured by the name of fields, with a walk all round bordered by a row of fruit-trees. These were separated from the Heath by a double fence, enclosing a tangled hedge which in summer was a mass of wild-roses and honeysuckle, but which now lay bare and dead under its covering of snow.

At the far corner of one of the paddocks, quite hidden from the house, was a little summer-house, where in summer the children kept their gardening tools and played on rainy days, and behind it stood a fine old oak-tree, with low spreading branches, along which any one might creep, and drop down on the other side of the hedge on to the Heath.

Altogether it was a delightful place for a game of hide-and-seek, and the children found it so, as they chased each other round and round the paddock, or dodged out and in among the narrow paths which separated the vineries and potting-houses from the stables.

The game was at its height when Isobel and Vivian, hot and breathless, found a convenient hiding-place between the summer-house and the trunk of the old oak, and were resting, safe from pursuit, while Ronald and Claude were searching for them in all directions round by the stables and the kitchen-garden—Ralph, who had been taken, watching them from the shelter of the ‘home.’

‘This is a lovely place to hide in, and no one knows of it but myself,’ said Isobel, brushing the snow from her skirts, ‘and it is even better in summer, when the leaves are on the trees. When I crawl in here no one can see a trace of me, no matter how close they come. If Ralph had been on our track he might have thought of coming round the summer-house, and he might have seen our footprints, but I don’t think Claude ever will.’

‘Yes, it is a jolly place for hiding, and that looks a jolly tree to climb,’ answered Vivian, looking with longing eyes at the low spreading branches. ‘Suppose we crawl along one of those branches and drop over on to the Heath, and then get “home” by the gate, wouldn’t Claude look astonished? He would think we had fallen from the clouds.’

‘Yes, do let us,’ said Isobel, always ready for any deed of daring, and, quick as thought she was up the tree and crawling carefully along one of the wide branches.

Vivian watched her with admiring eyes.

‘You are a brick, Isobel,’ he said; ‘you can climb as well as any boy, and yet you are so nice and dainty. I wish the Lister girls down at home saw you, they are such stiff, starched, stuck-up prigs; they think that no girl can climb and do that sort of thing and yet be what they call ladylike. If they have got to get over a wall, no matter how low it is, they cry out and make such a fuss. We fellows hate them. They spoil all the parties and picnics with their silly ways, and yet they have to be asked, for their mother lets them have awfully jolly parties, and they always ask us.’

‘Silly things!’ said Isobel, turning round now that she had reached the end of the branch, and trying to bob up and down so as to get a swing.

‘But I am rather sorry for them all the same, for I expect they have no brothers. I always pity girls who have no brothers. I can tell them as soon as I see them, they walk so straight and proper, one on each side of their governess.’

‘But supposing there are three of them,’ said Vivian, laughing.

‘Oh, then two walk in front, and one with the governess,’ said Isobel; ‘but they all have the same proper look. If you like, I’ll point some of them out to you when we go down the Finchley Road.’

‘You would point out girls you knew, who have no brothers,’ said Vivian, trying to tease her.

‘I’m not so mean,’ answered Isobel, the delicate colour rising to her face at the imputation; ‘but if you intend to come along this branch you had better come quickly. I see Claude’s cap past the end of the hen-house.’

Vivian began crawling along the branch, but presently he stopped short.

‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing to something that looked like a bit of dirty rag, which stuck out of the side of a thick branch just over his head. Isobel frowned and hesitated.

‘You make me tell you all my secrets,’ she said at last, laughing; ‘but if I tell you, you must promise, honour bright, not to tell any one else.’

‘I promise,’ said Vivian solemnly, looking curiously at the odd-looking bundle, which was partly covered with snow.

‘Well, then, that’s my very own private hiding-place. I found it out by myself, and no one else knows of it. I was up here one day last summer, and was walking along this branch and holding on to that one—you can do that in summer, when the branches are not slippery—and all at once my fingers went into a hole. The wood felt quite rotten, and I broke it away, and made it bigger, and I found that the whole branch was hollow, so I began to use it to put things in—story-books and things. Then, on half-holidays when I wanted to be alone, I used to climb up here, and sit and read, and nobody knew where I was.’

‘But what is that bundle of rags for?’ went on Vivian, putting up his hand to pull them down.

‘Oh, don’t touch them!’ cried Isobel, almost overbalancing herself in her anxiety; ‘that is an old duster that I borrowed from Mary. I stuck it in to prevent the rain and snow getting inside the branch and making the hole all wet. It would spoil my books, you see, if it got damp.’

‘I won’t touch it; I just want to see,’ said Vivian, stretching his neck and regarding the place with keen interest. ‘Do you ever keep things in it just now?’

‘No, never,’ said Isobel; ‘it’s far too wet; besides, it would be no fun sitting up a tree at Christmas time.’

At that moment Claude caught sight of Isobel’s bright scarlet tam o’ shanter over the top of the summer-house, and, with a shout to Ronald, he bore down on them as fast as his fat little legs would let him.

‘Caught!’ cried Ronald as he raced up; ‘fairly caught, for you cannot get off that branch without our getting hold of you.’

‘Can’t we?’ cried Isobel mischievously, as she rocked her end of the branch gently up and down. ‘Just wait and see.’

‘Let me go first, Isobel,’ said Vivian, crawling along to where she stood, and trying to pass her; ‘the ground may be harder than we think, and my boots are thicker than yours, so I won’t feel the jump so much, and you can see how I get on.’

‘Fudge!’ replied Isobel, refusing to give up her point of vantage. ‘It looks high from here; but if I let myself down, and hold on by my arms, I can drop quite easily. Robin Earlison and I did it one day last summer, and got round to the “home” before the others knew where we had gone.’

She was stooping down preparing to lower herself, when all at once there was a sudden crack, and, before either of the children could move, the branch gave way, and fell with its burden on the hard path, which at this point bordered the Heath.

Ronald in great alarm ran forward and tried to find an opening in the thick, snow-covered hedge through which he could squeeze himself.

‘Are you hurt?’ he cried anxiously, finding that his efforts only resulted in scratched hands and ruffled hair. ‘I can’t get through, but I will run into the house and call somebody if you are.’

‘No, we’re not,’ answered Vivian, scrambling to his feet, anxious only that the news of this new escapade should not reach his aunt’s ears; for, although no one had said so, he felt that she would not like the idea of any of the children getting out of bounds in this way.

‘Then we shall come and catch you,’ shouted Ronald, and Vivian could hear the sound of his retreating footsteps going round by the apple-tree. He had answered for Isobel and himself when he had said that neither of them were hurt; but Isobel, who had sat up at first, was now lying back on the path again, with a funny, dazed look in her eyes.

‘You’re not hurt, Isobel, are you?’ he asked, kneeling down beside her, and feeling frightened all at once; ‘for if you are, I had better run for Aunt Dora.’

‘No, I don’t think I am,’ said Isobel bravely, although she did not attempt to move, ‘not really hurt, but I think I have knocked the back of my head against something.’

‘Can’t you sit up?’ said Vivian. ‘If you could just sit up, and get into the house, we would bathe it with tepid water. That’s good for a bump I know. Mother always bathes Dorothy’s head with tepid water if she knocks it.’

‘I’ll try,’ said the little girl, and with his help she struggled to her feet, but when she tried to walk she turned so sick and giddy she was glad to sit down on the broken branch again. She was still sitting there when Ronald ran up triumphantly, out of breath with his long run round by the lodge. His look of triumph faded away, however, when he saw her.

‘Hallo, Isobel!’ he exclaimed, ‘I thought you were not hurt. You haven’t broken your arm or anything?’

‘Of course she hasn’t,’ answered his brother impatiently. ‘She is only feeling queer because she fell on the hard path and bumped her head. She’ll be all right in a minute.’

But Ronald did not like the look on his cousin’s face.

‘I think I’ll just run in for Aunt Dora,’ he said; and, without heeding Isobel’s protest, he turned and ran off.

Aunt Dora had gone out, however, and when he told his tale to Ralph, who had grown tired of waiting for the others to be taken, and had gone indoors, he only laughed at his cousin’s grave face and anxious voice.

‘Don’t be a muff,’ he said in his languid, patronising way. ‘If you were at school you would learn not to be so squeamish over every little knock that every one gets. I expect Isobel will be all right by now, and it will teach both Vivian and her not to get out of the garden like that. Father would be in a wax if he knew, I can tell you.’

Ronald felt inclined to remind Ralph that, if he were not in the habit of feeling squeamish over other people’s knocks, he made quite enough fuss over his own, for Isobel or Claude would laugh over a bruise or a cut which would send their elder brother into the house in tears; but he remembered that he was Ralph’s guest, so like a gentleman he kept back the hasty words, and set off in silence to see how it was faring with the party outside.

He met them just beyond the lodge; and, although Isobel was walking slowly, the colour had come back to her face, and she replied cheerily to his anxious question that she was all right, and that her head did not ache so badly now.

Perhaps if Mrs Osbourne had come home in time for the children’s early dinner she might not have been deceived so easily by the little girl’s assurances; but, thinking that the children would be quite safe as long as Ronald and Ralph were with them, she had stayed to spend the afternoon with an old aunt of Mr Osbourne’s whom she found in bed with a bad attack of bronchitis; and although Anne, who waited on the children at dinner-time, noticed the child’s dull eyes and listless manner, she only said, ‘Surely you are not hungry, Miss Isobel,’ as she took away her almost untouched plate; and Isobel, after dawdling about with Claude for a little, helping him to set out all his soldiers in a row on the edge of the bath, ready to salute as his new man-of-war was launched, lay down with a story-book on the schoolroom sofa, and soon fell into a heavy sleep.

The frost had given way, and the afternoon was dull and wet, so there was no prospect of getting out, and employment had to be found indoors. Soon Ralph, tired of his book, and more sociably inclined than usual, proposed that they should go up to an unused room at the top of the house, where he had a carpenter’s bench and a set of tools, and begin to hollow out a log which he intended making into a boat. Both Ronald and he were good craftsmen, and they were soon busy with hammer and chisel, while Vivian found employment for his fingers in whittling the corners off a piece of wood which was destined to form a funnel.

The noise of hammering prevented much talking, and his own thoughts did not seem to be very pleasant, for the cheery whistling, which Mrs Armitage was wont to say always told her when Vivian was about, soon stopped, and a frown gathered on his handsome little face. Presently he laid down the piece of wood and left the room.

The lie that he had told, or acted rather, in letting his aunt believe that he knew nothing of the lost pistol was weighing heavily on his conscience, and the remembrance of the paper parcel lying on the top of the wardrobe in his room, ready to be found by any prying servant, haunted him.

The very thought of the pistol was hateful to him now. He wondered why he had ever wanted it, and he wished that he could get rid of it anyhow, anywhere. But to do so was not so easy. He was never out alone, or he might have thrown it into one of the ponds on the Heath; and although the idea of burying it came into his mind, he remembered what Isobel had told him about Monarch the great watch-dog hiding bones in the corners of the flower-beds whenever he had a chance, and scraping them up again just when the gardener had sown some special kind of seed there or bedded out some favourite plant. No, it certainly would not be safe to hide the packet in the ground.

Suddenly a new idea flashed through his brain, and he quickened his steps. The hole that Isobel had let him see—that would be the very place to hide it in. If once he could put it there, without any one seeing him, and replace the old duster, it might lie for months before it was discovered; and even if it were discovered no one could trace the theft back to him. He would push it well along inside the hollow branch, so that even Isobel would not be likely to find it. How stupid of him not to have thought of it sooner! But there was time to do it yet, if only Aunt Dora would stay out a little longer. It was getting dark, and the gardeners would have gone home to tea. It was a splendid chance, if only he could slip out without being seen.

While these thoughts were passing through his mind he had gone to his room, and noiselessly locked the door and drawn a chair up to the wardrobe. He dared not put the chair on the washstand, as he had done in the morning, in case of another accident, but he dragged his father’s portmanteau forward and lifted it on to the chair, and when he was mounted on that he found he could, with an effort, just touch the parcel with the tips of his fingers. He looked round for something which would raise him a little higher. The travelling-rug—but that had been left downstairs; a pillow—that would do. Quick as thought he jumped to the floor, and pulled one of the pillows from under the coverlet. Taking off his slippers in case he soiled it, he mounted the unsteady pile. How soft and uneven the pillow was. His feet slipped and sank in it. And there were footsteps on the staircase. Was it Anne, or was it Aunt Dora come back? With a desperate effort he raised himself on tiptoe, and seized the parcel; and then, overbalancing himself, he fell with a crash, carrying both the pillow and the portmanteau with him.

At that moment a knock came to the door.

‘What in all the living world are you doing, Master Vivian?’

It was only Anne after all, and Vivian breathed freely again.

‘One moment, Anne,’ he cried; and, quick as lightning, he pushed the pillow under the coverlet again and returned the portmanteau to its place. Then he hid the little packet containing the pistol and caps under his jacket, and unlocked the door.

Anne, tired of waiting, had gone on to Ralph’s bedroom, and when she came back Vivian was gone and the room was empty.

‘Whatever has he been up to now?’ she said to herself, as she noted the tumbled bed-clothes and the overturned chair, which Vivian in his haste had forgotten to pick up. ‘That boy is up to mischief, or my name is not Anne Martin. This is the second time that he has fallen in this room to-day, and it’s clear that it was that chair he fell from.’

So saying, she picked up the chair, and, getting on to it, she proceeded to take a survey of the top of the wardrobe and the bed-hangings, but she found no trace of anything to arouse her suspicions; and with a shake of her head at the sight of the dust which had accumulated since she looked up there last, she got down again, muttering to herself as she did so, ‘If that young gentleman lived in this house I would see that the mistress put an end to the overturning of ewers and crumpling of pillows, especially when he was sleeping in the very best bedroom.’