The girls hemmed grey calico covers for the drawers and the dressing-table, and we drew the blinds half-down, and when all was done the room looked as quiet as a roosting wood-pigeon.
We put in a clock, but we did not wind it up.
"She can do that herself," said Dora, "if she feels she can bear to hear it ticking."
Oswald went to the station to meet her. He rode on the box beside the driver. When the others saw him mount there I think they were sorry they had not been polite and gone to meet her themselves. Oswald had a jolly ride. We got to the station just as the train came in. Only one lady got out of it, so Oswald knew it must be Mrs. Bax. If he had not been told how quiet she wanted to be he would have thought she looked rather jolly. She had short hair and gold spectacles. Her skirts were short, and she carried a parrot-cage in her hand. It contained our parrot, and when we wrote to tell Father that it and Pincher were the only things we wanted sent we never thought she would have brought either.
"Mrs. Bax, I believe," was the only break Oswald made in the polite silence that he took the parrot-cage and her bag from her in.
"How do you do?" she said very briskly for a tired lady; and Oswald thought it was noble of her to make the effort to smile. "Are you Oswald or Dicky?"
Oswald told her in one calm word which he was, and then Pincher rolled madly out of a dog-box almost into his arms. Pincher would not be quiet. Of course he did not understand the need for it. Oswald conversed with Pincher in low, restraining whispers as he led the way to the "Ship's" fly. He put the parrot-cage on the inside seat of the carriage, held the door open for Mrs. Bax with silent politeness, closed it as quietly as possible, and prepared to mount on the box.
"Oh, won't you come inside?" asked Mrs. Bax. "Do!"
"No, thank you," said Oswald in calm and mouse-like tones; and to avoid any more jaw he got at once on to the box with Pincher.
So that Mrs. Bax was perfectly quiet for the whole six miles—unless you count the rattle and shake-up-and-down of the fly. On the box Oswald and Pincher "tasted the sweets of a blissful re-union," like it says in novels. And the man from the "Ship" looked on and said how well bred Pincher was. It was a happy drive.