"Call this a garden!" said the boy, with a look round; "I call it a pocket-handkerchief!"
Then they both laughed, and Esther laughed too, for there was something infectious about their high spirits, though they did talk in a fashion she had never heard before.
"Come and see mama first," she said, "and then I'll take you up-stairs to wash your hands, and then we'll have tea together. I daresay you are hungry."
They followed her into the little drawing-room where Mrs. St. Aiden lay. On her face there was a look of some perplexity, for she had heard a great deal of shouting and laughing, and was in some anxiety to know what it could mean.
Now she was looking upon a couple of little boys, in plain dark-blue knickerbocker suits, both having round faces and curly hair, though that of the elder boy was dark brown, and his eyes were a bright hazel; whilst the younger was blue-eyed, his hair the color of burnished gold, and his face, when at rest, wore a sort of cherubic expression that went to his aunt's heart.
"My dears, I am very glad to see you," she said. "Come and kiss me, and tell me which is Philip and which is Percy."
The boys looked at each other, and a gleam came into their eyes.
"We'll kiss you to-day," said the elder one, advancing, and speaking with the air of one making a great concession, "because we've just come, and Crump said we were to. But we're not going to kiss every day. That's like women and girls. Boys don't kiss like that. So you won't expect it, you know."
Then the pair advanced simultaneously; each gave and received a kiss, and stood back again, the younger one wiping the salute from his face with the cuff of his jacket.
"I hope you're not a kissing girl," he said in a low voice to Esther, who stood behind lost in amaze, "because I shan't let you kiss me."