Miss Burridge emerged wiping her hands on a towel. The other went to meet her.
"How nice!" she said, beaming. "What a nice outing for Bertie. That's real clever of you, Philip. How did you happen to think of it?"
"Well, his friends in Boston want him," said Philip, and he administered a wink which Miss Burridge understood sufficiently to postpone a catechism until later. The boy allowed her and Veronica to shake his passive hand in bidding him good-bye and then he went away with his companions with no further questioning.
When they were gone, Miss Burridge exclaimed her astonishment.
"Mr. Barrison received a wire, that's all I know," said Veronica. "The youngster's in mortal terror of his uncle, but Mr. Barrison told him his uncle was there and it was all right. Miss Wilbur or else Mrs. Lowell sent the telegram. Sort of queer they should be hobnobbing with old Nick, but perhaps he let them send the wire to save expense."
Philip made conscientious efforts to entertain his young charge on their trip. In Portland, where they spent the night, he bought some magazines, naturally guessing that the more filled with pictures they were the better, and he was puzzled at the evident shrinking from the illustrations that the boy displayed.
"Something seriously off with the poor little nut," he thought. "Any boy likes to look at pictures."
So he left him in peace and let him stare apathetically from the car window all the way to Boston, or doze in his corner.
Philip wired Diana just before they took the train, and she ordered luncheon to be served in her rooms. She wished very much that some kind turn of Fortune's wheel would call her mother forth to the shops that morning, but by reason of the fragments Mrs. Wilbur overheard passing between her child and Mrs. Lowell or the lawyer, her curiosity as to this waif who might be going to carry on the Loring fortunes became sufficiently vivid to determine her to remain where she could oversee all that her daughter did.
"Who did you say is bringing the boy on?" she asked Diana that morning.