“And I hope grand-auntie will let us go,” sighed Sybil.
“Oh, she’ll be sure to if I stand surety for your safety, like a good old grandfather,” Dick assured them. “And, I say, it ought to be to-morrow, Willett,” he suggested.
“Short notice.”
“Yes; but it can be done. I’ll see Madame Giche on our way home.”
So when the gold was intermingling with the grey under the park trees, and it was hard upon sundown, the whole party went bounding up the avenue at the Owl’s Nest, the rooks over their [p120] heads cawing a noisy “good night” to them and the world in general. They found Madame Giche pacing to and fro on the terrace with the peacocks.
At first the aged lady was hard to manage: if her nieces were of the party, they must take Rance, their nurse, she said; but, as Dick assured her, there was no need.
“They’ll be as safe as safe, dear Madame Giche,” were his words, spoken with the persuasive grace of a courtier, smiling his boyish smile into her face. “With two such safeguards as Willett and me, they can’t come to any harm—in fact, there’s nothing they can come to harm in—’tis a safe shore, even if they took into their heads to bathe, which none of the young ladies will, I daresay.”
“No, grand-auntie; we don’t want to bathe or do anything dangerous,” pleaded Sybil.
“And we don’t want to be babies, and take our nurse,” objected Olive.
“Well, dears, you shall have your way,” promised over-persuaded grand-auntie; and so “the midges,” to use Dick’s words, “won the day.” Oh, the joy of waking with a whole long [p121] summer’s day of pleasure in store! An excursion to the beautiful sea—she had scarcely seen it in her short life.