"He is the sweetest little fellow," Lady Burdon laughed. "And reading to him—I was going to ask you about that—about lessons, I mean. Does he do lessons? Rollo's education has been terribly neglected, I am afraid. I thought it would be so nice if he could join his new friend in them while he is here."
"Percival goes every morning to Miss Purdie—you would have passed her cottage—next to the Church."
"Capital," Lady Burdon said. "I will arrange for Rollo."
"She will be delighted. Having Percival has already lost her a chance of another pupil. Mrs. Espart was going to send her little girl over daily, but didn't like the idea of the post-office little boy."
"Ridiculous!" Lady Burdon cried. "I will tell her so." She turned at the sound of much scrambling and laughter in the doorway. "Ridiculous! Rollo, you are going to do lessons with Percival. Now won't that be jolly, darling?"
But it was Percival who was first in and came bounding to them with: "Aunt Maggie! Aunt Maggie! Rollo has got a pony of his own in London and rides it! Well, what do you think of that?"
Aunt Maggie thought it splendid and was introduced to Rollo, and "suddenly seemed to lose her tongue," as Lady Burdon told Lord Burdon at lunch. "Hugged Percival as though she hadn't seen him for a year and scarcely looked at Rollo. Jealous, I believe, at the difference between their stations. Funny, that kind of jealousy, don't you think?"
But it was not jealousy that had silenced Aunt Maggie and caused her to clutch Percival to her breast. At sight of him with Rollo, and of Lady Burdon smiling at him, that fluttering had run up in her brain, and she had clasped Percival to restrain herself while it lasted. It had gone while she held him; but she had almost cried: "Do you dare smile at him? He is Audrey's son! Audrey's son!"
Percival wriggled from her embrace and she heard Lady Burdon say to Rollo: "Well, why not a pony here?" and heard her laugh delightedly at the excited roar the suggestion shot out of Percival.
"I wonder if there is anywhere here we could get a pony for Rollo?" she heard Lady Burdon say, and heard the question repeated, and made a great effort to come out of the shaken state in which the fluttering had left her.