A boy with a large parcel had just entered the gate, and had actually had the temerity to approach the house in the way Dolly had done, regardless of flower-borders. At the moment of Ted’s shout he was setting a desecrating foot recklessly down upon the pansy-bed that was the pride of the house.
Ted disentangled himself from the wiles of Weenie, who had occupied herself by chaining him to a garden-seat with trails of wild clematis.
“I’ll knock the good-for-nothing little beggar’s head off,” he said, and took a tempestuous step in the direction of the impertinent lad.
But Phyl was before him. One great gasp and choking cry she gave, then she broke away from the [308] ]tea-ring, [rushed madly] across the grass and flower-beds, and to the incredulous astonishment of the family fell upon the boy and his parcel and began to hug him in a way marvellous to behold.
Up rose the family to investigate. And lo! it too found itself rushing madly over the well-ordered pansy and primrose retreats, and also falling upon the parcel-carrying youth and hugging him.
[Rushed madly across the flower-beds.]
Freddie was the first to recover himself.
“I’ll be undoing the parcel, Alf,” he said, “I’d like just to have a look at my drum.”
[309]
]Then Alf laughed. He had been crying like a baby on his step-mother’s shoulder until now.