But the words were too gentle for the hurrying man to heed, or perhaps he had more important people in his eye, for he took no notice, and the boys were standing, feeling rather helpless, with a homesick longing for old Timms’s honest red face, when Aunt Dora’s cheery voice sounded just behind them.
‘Well, boys, how are you? Did you think that I had forgotten you? Not a very cheerful welcome, was it—eh, Vivian—to let you arrive all by yourselves? But you must blame the fog and not me. It was quite clear when I started, and it is so foggy in some parts now that we had to drive very slowly. I am afraid it will take us quite a long time to get home; but never mind, you will enjoy your tea all the more when you get it.’
If it took a long time to get home, the boys hardly noticed it. It was impossible to be shy with Aunt Dora. She was so bright and full of fun, and so eager to hear all the home news—how mother and little Dorothy were, and how father’s patients were getting on. She was Dr Armitage’s sister, and had lived with him when he first settled at Sittingham, and she took as great an interest now in the old women at the almshouses and the new babies in the village as she had done in the old days when she had carried soup to one and milk to the other.
‘Here we are at last!’ she exclaimed, interrupting a graphic description which Vivian was giving of the latest village concert; and as she spoke the carriage turned in at an ivy-covered lodge, and drew up in front of a large square house which looked as if it were capable of holding a very large party indeed.
The instant the carriage stopped, the front door opened, and two eager faces appeared, peeping out behind the trim parlour-maid, who came down the steps to open the door and take the wraps.
‘Isobel and Claude have been on the lookout, you see,’ laughed their mother. ‘Their excitement has known no bounds ever since they knew that you were coming. But I don’t see Ralph; I expect he will be deep in a book as usual. Run in out of the cold, boys, and Ann will bring your portmanteau.’
‘We thought that you were never coming,’ said Isobel, taking possession of her cousins at once, and leading the way upstairs to the schoolroom. ‘Claude and I have been watching for the carriage ever since five o’clock, and it is a quarter to six now. Aren’t you just famishing for your tea? It is all ready in the schoolroom, and I’ve to pour it out.’
‘What will Miss Ritchie say to that?’ asked Ronald, laughing. ‘You remember you told us last Easter how particular she was about spots on the tablecloth, and a teapot is rather a heavy thing.’
‘She’s gone,’ said Claude, who was contentedly bringing up the rear, with a broad grin on his rosy face, ‘right away to Wales to spend her holidays. Mother said if we were very good we might do without a governess this Christmas, for I’m eight now you see, and that is quite big.’