Mrs. Compton was vexed during luncheon to see how her children abstained from conversation when Dick was so ready to talk and answer all her questions. Ruth and Lionel always showed at a disadvantage before their grandfather. Their mother never realised that the fact of her having brought them up to fear him was the cause of their doing so. It surprised her to hear her little nephew expressing his opinions; and she expected every moment that his grandfather would turn upon him with some cutting remark which would wound his feelings; but instead, Sir Richard encouraged the child to talk, and seemed amused with his conversation.
After luncheon the children were again left to their own devices, when they held another consultation as to the first steps to be taken in their search for the secret passage. Lionel suggested that the best plan would be to consult Granfer Cole, and obtain all the information they could from him. He volunteered to call upon the old man, and let Dick hear the result of his interview with him.
So it was arranged, much to the satisfaction of all three, and the great delight of the younger boy.
"Mind, it's a secret," Lionel said impressively. "No one must know what we mean to do!"
"All right!" Dick replied readily, filled with a sense of his own importance.
So the children parted on the best of terms, and Dick returned to No. 8 Fore Street in high spirits. He told his aunt and uncle that he liked his cousins; but he refrained from mentioning the fact that his acquaintance with them had commenced in rather a stormy manner. He did not like to tell Dr. Warren and his sister that Lionel had laughed at their names, and called the former a nobody; neither did he confess that he had lost his temper and hit his cousin, for that would have meant explaining the whole matter.
It was late before Dick fell asleep that night, his mind was so full of the compact he had entered into with Ruth and Lionel to try and find the secret passage. It was the first secret he had ever had to keep; and long after Aunt Mary Ann and Uncle Theophilus had retired to their respective bedrooms Dick lay awake thinking of ways and means to attain the end he and his cousins had in view, till at length drowsiness overcame him, and he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
[CHAPTER XII]
CONCERNING TWO AFTERNOON CALLS
WITHIN the course of a few days Mrs. Compton called at No. 8 Fore Street. Her visit was so entirely unexpected by Miss Warren, that it put that lady into a flutter of excitement. She was in the sitting-room with Dick, who was employed in writing to his mother, when she glanced out of the window and saw Sir Richard Gidley's carriage draw up in front of the house.