"You'd rather stay with the car than come inside?" he asked the girls. "I shall probably be perhaps twenty minutes—not longer, I hope! Walk about, Mavis, if you feel chilly. I'm sure Mrs.——" but at that moment the butler opened the door, and the rest of the doctor's sentence went unspoken.
For a space of five minutes the Ramsays stayed quietly in the car, then Merle began to grow restless. She amused herself by inspecting the various levers.
"I could start as easily as anything," she announced airily.
"Oh, Merle, don't! Uncle David will be so angry if you play any of your pranks with the car. Let us get out and walk about till he comes back. I'm tired of sitting still."
Anxious to keep her sister away from temptation, Mavis hustled her out of the car on to the drive, and began to pace up and down the carriage sweep. But this did not content lively Merle. She wanted to sample the garden.
"Uncle David was just going to tell us to go when he went indoors," she contended, and there seemed so much truth in her argument that Mavis yielded, though slightly against her better judgment.
It was so warm that they took off their coats and left them inside the car, then they selected an interesting-looking path among the bushes, and started to explore. Certainly it was a delightful garden; it had lawns and shrubberies and flower-borders, and a brook with a rustic bridge over it, and a glade that looked a veritable fairies' dancing-place. Mavis and Merle were thoroughly enjoying themselves. They were in no particular hurry, because they thought when Uncle David came out of the house and missed them he would sound his motor-horn as a signal for them to return. They walked on, therefore, some considerable way along the course of the little brook. Quite suddenly they heard voices, and from a path slightly ahead two girls turned into the glade. The Ramsays remembered them instantly. They had been present at the dancing-class yesterday, and it was indeed the elder of them who had behaved with such extreme rudeness to Merle in the ladies' chain. The recognition seemed to be mutual. They came forward briskly towards Mavis and Merle, who stood still, feeling decidedly caught, but determined to hold their own.
"Hello! What are you doing here in our garden?" began the elder girl inhospitably.
"Looking at your flowers," answered Merle.
"Well, I must say that's rather cool. Don't you know you're trespassing?"