"All right!" said Tom, with a trifle more energy. And then finding he could look up into the trees with his telescope, he began to adjust it, and Mrs. Arundel went indoors.
Tom was the first to hear the sound of the approaching party, and in his excitement gave a very shrill whistle, which brought his mother running out long before anything was to be seen.
But in a few minutes, they came within sight over the brow of the little hill. Nellie, looking the picture of happiness, leaning on the arm of a sunburnt, pleasant young man of about twenty-two, who was laughing and talking, and holding Isabel by his disengaged hand.
The others were conveying his bag, umbrella, &c.; for Walter certainly should not have anything to carry this first day.
He came forward quickly when he saw his stepmother, and kissed her affectionately; and before Tom had time to object, he had stooped and kissed him also, saying with a sweet smile, "Ah, Tom! Here's somebody come that will be able to push you along finely!"
Tom looked astonished, and then a little ashamed as his eyes rested on his mother's face. And her touched and grateful smile set him thinking even in that moment of arrival how it was that his mother could love him so much. He thought he would ask her some day.
After tea nobody seemed inclined to walk down into the town again, so they gathered round their mother and Walter in the orchard. And with the sweet air blowing up gently from the sea, and the scent of the flowers coming over from the garden, he explained to them how it was that he came so suddenly, and what were his plans.
"I should not have taken you by surprise if I could have helped it; but one of the partners of our firm was coming over on business, and was thrown from his horse and seriously hurt at the last moment. They were obliged to send someone trustworthy, and luckily fixed on me; so with only twenty-four hours' notice I was off, instead of him, in the steamer in which his passage was taken."
"Jolly!" said Arthur.
"Very," answered Walter, smiling; "for I should not have come in such style on my own account."