****
Presently a renewed rustle was succeeded by the now yellow-legged, brown-backed Bumbler, throwing open the door and exclaiming in a stentorian voice, as if he thought his master and mistress had turned suddenly deaf, “Mrs. and Miss Dotherington!” and in an instant the four were hugging, and grinning, and pump-handling each other’s arms as if they were going into ecstacies, Mrs. Dotherington interlarding her gymnastics with Mrs. Yammerton, with sly squeezes of the hand, suited to soto voce observations not intended for the Major’s ears, of “so ‘appy to ear it! so glad to congratulate you! So nice!” with an inquisitive whisper of—“which is it? which is it? Do tell me!”