"No, I don't!"
"Well, you are at any rate. These are private grounds."
"So I suppose, but we're not doing them any harm by walking round them."
"Oh, Merle, do let us explain properly," put in Mavis, trying to stop this unseemly fencing. "We came with our uncle, Dr. Tremayne, and we got tired of sitting in the car waiting for him, so we took a walk. We didn't think anyone would mind."
"Is Dr. Tremayne your uncle? Why didn't you say so before?"
"You never gave us a chance!" snapped Merle. "Of course he's our uncle. There goes his hooter. We must scoot back, because he'll be in a hurry to start."
"I can show you a short cut," volunteered the younger girl, speaking for the first time, and running in front she led the way, between bushes and through a vegetable garden, back to the carriage sweep opposite the front door.
Here Dr. Tremayne was hooting loudly to recall his wandering nieces, and looked not a little relieved at their appearance.
"I thought I'd lost you again," he said, as they came up. "So you've been making friends with Babbie? Where's Gwen? Is her wrist better? I wanted to look at it. Yes, fetch her, please, Babbie! I may as well see her while I'm here."
Mavis and Merle, with eyes fixed on the distant landscape, sat in the car while Dr. Tremayne made a hurried examination of Gwen Williams's wrist. They did not look in her direction as they drove away, though they nodded a stately good-bye to Babbie.