"Rather!"
"Well, we'll see what can be done. No, I can't exactly promise anything; but look here! if you care to come here again next Saturday afternoon perhaps I might have a surprise ready for you. No, I shan't tell you anything about it, or it wouldn't be a surprise. You must wait and see!"
"Do whisper just a teeny-weeny hint," begged Mavis coaxingly, but Bevis was adamant.
"I don't know myself yet! Wait till next Saturday. Give me your pennies, and I'll dig a hole. Here's a foundation at any rate. Good luck to Blackthorn Bower."
Having solemnly interred the three coins, the young people regretfully remembered the time, and turned away from the lovely spot to go back to Chagmouth. For the sake of variety they went by another path, which led over the top of the headland and down on to an inland road. In the deep sheltered green lane early violets were blooming, and presently, on the banks of a little pond, they spied the first kingcups of the year. They were growing in a rather swampy place, and it would have been prudent of the girls to have let Bevis gather them for them; instead of which they both insisted upon venturing on to some very spongy ground, with the result that Mavis made a false step and plunged suddenly, well over her knees, into water. She splashed out again immediately, but the damage was done. Here was a pretty business—Mavis, newly recovered from a bad attack of bronchitis, was wet through and shivering already.
"Oh, she'll get cold!" cried Merle. "What are we to do?"
"I feel like a dr-r-r-owned r-r-r-at!" said Mavis through her chattering teeth.
"Mrs. Jarvis lives close by. She'd dry her things," suggested Bevis.
"Oh, do let us go there at once then!"
Where Mavis's health was concerned, Merle, through sad experience, was an anxious little mother. The Triumvirate hurried off post-haste in the direction of a white-washed cottage whose chimney peeped above the hedge on the opposite side of the road.