We paused to listen.
“Yes, it is,” I said in surprise. “Whatever can he be doing out here?” and we hurried on; for the dog is a valuable one, and is never let out without an escort. A turn in the lane brought us face to face with a tall, familiar masculine figure.
“Why, wherever have you come from?” I exclaimed.
“I’ve just made my escape from the tame lunatic who seems to be in charge of the cottage,” said the Head of Affairs cheerfully, as he relieved Ursula of the quart of milk. “And I would suggest, my dear, that the next time you propose to turn your house into a sanatorium for ‘Mentally Deficients,’ you might give your family due notice. A shock like that isn’t good for one after climbing such a hill.”
And he might not have been particularly mollified when, later in the evening, Eileen offered the following apology:—
“I’m very sorry, sir, that I kept you waiting outside all that time in the cold; only how was I to know you were a gentleman, sir, when you looked so exactly like a burglar?”
But, fortunately, in the interval he had discovered, in his dressing-room, a new-but-forgotten pair of boots, and a not-at-all-bad-considering-it’s-war-time overcoat; and, naturally, he was inclined to take a roseate view of life.