Dickie answered honestly and straightforwardly. Only of course he did not tell about the magic, or say that in that magic world he and Lord Arden's children were friends and cousins. And all the time they were talking Lord Arden's eyes were fixed on his face, except when they wandered to Tinkler and the white seal. Once he picked these up, and looked at the crest on them.
"Where did you get these?" he asked.
Dickie told. And then Lord Arden handed the seal and Tinkler to him and went on with his questions.
At last Elfrida put her arms round her father's neck and whispered. "I know it's not manners, but Dickie won't mind," she said before the whispering began.
"Yes, certainly," said Lord Arden when the whispering was over; "it's tea-time. Dickie, you'll come home to tea with us, won't you?"
"I must tell Mr. Beale," said Dickie; "he'll be anxious if I don't."
"Shall I hurt you if I put you on my back?" Lord Arden asked, and next minute he was carrying Dickie down the slope towards Arden Castle, while Edred went back to Beale's cottage to say where Dickie was. When Edred got back to Arden Castle tea was ready in the parlor, and Dickie was resting in a comfortable chair.
"Isn't old Beale a funny old man?" said Edred. "He said Arden Castle was the right place for Dickie, with a face like that. What could he have meant? What are you doing that for?" he added in injured tones, for Elfrida had kicked his hand under the table.
Before tea was over there was a sound of horses' hoofs and carriage wheels in the courtyard. And the maid-servant opened the parlor door and said, "Lady Talbot." Though he remembered well enough how kind she had been to him, Dickie wished he could creep under the table. It was too hard; she must recognize him. And now Edred and Elfrida, and Lord Arden, who was so kind and jolly, they would all know that he had once been a burglar, and that she had wanted to adopt him, and that he had been ungrateful and had run away. He trembled all over. It was too hard.
Lady Talbot shook hands with the others, and then turned to him. "And who is your little friend?" she asked Edred, and in the same breath cried out—"Why, it's my little runaway!"