Pauline pounced on the formal telegram from Miss Bibby—“Will bring my charges. Many thanks for thinking of them.”
“We did a much better one for her,” she said, “only she wouldn’t send it. I liked it best of all.”
“What was it?” asked Hugh, and learnt that the “rejected address” was—
“Won’t it be nibby?
Yours truly, Miss Bibby.”
But at this point Miss Bibby’s slender figure in its pale grey muslin was seen crossing [p241] the road, so the presents were hastily distributed, and four pairs of young eyes tried to outrival in brightness the just peeping stars of the early evening.
Miss Bibby shook hands with Kate, then with Hugh, on whom she bent a curious glance: she had half expected to see him turn aside and dive through the doorway at the sight of herself, yet there he stood as calm and unashamed as possible.
He took her hand and held it in a pleasant grasp. He looked down at her in the half-fatherly, bantering fashion he adopted to the “ducky little girls.”
“Well,” he said, “and how is the poor little pen?”
Miss Bibby shot one keen glance at him.