Mollie explained that what she had been doing was entirely uninteresting. It was only what she expected--a little house on the river near Weybridge. "Yes, the usual little cottagey thing--with a lawn." Mollie liked it, and anyway it had to be because Dad couldn't leave London for ages. "It'll have to be put up with," said Mollie, "one must look forward to better times," but it seemed that was not the matter that was causing all this bubble of excitement and beam of smiles.
"Addie, I've got a message for you and Crow from Dad. Very special. You can have the Messenger to play with, till he wants her."
"We can!" gasped Christobel.
Adrian murmured "My hat!" and flushed red all over his tanned face.
"Yes. That's why I came bursting down, because why shouldn't we go out to-day? Do let's. I've got to do reams of packing, and I'm vowed to go back with the goods, next Monday. Mother lets me off till Monday. Well, anyway Dad says he sees that Crow and Adrian can manage the yawl just as well as he can, and he trusts her to you--only he says if you wreck her you'll have to give him another--that's all. Of course he knows Penberthy isn't vital. Especially when he has lumbago. She's not a heavy boat, and yawls are awfully convenient, Mrs. Romilly--aren't they, Addie?"
"Rather," agreed Adrian ecstatically; his hands shook a little with the thrill of the moment. Crow's grey eyes, so like her father's, seemed to shine with an inner light.
"Well, then, that's all settled. No, don't thank. Dad hates Messenger being on the moorings, just wasting. Hullo, here's Pamela, just in time to join in this jubilee. I say, Pam, why didn't you stop when I called you?"
Pamela slipped into her chair, took an egg, realized the amazing news from a few words of Crow's, looked from her mother's happy face to Adrian's, then attended to Mollie's question.
"How do you mean--'stop'--stop when?"
"Why, just now--when I was coming down the bay drive from Crown Hill, I was nearly at the end lodge, and you came down the road from Hawksdown, went to the edge of the cliff above Penberthy's and stared down into the cove. I called out to you, but you wouldn't answer, you must have heard."