One afternoon, when the boys were lying reading in the tent, Barbara suddenly appeared in the open doorway, and stamping her foot, cried, "Bother!"
"What's up with you, Bar?"
"Why, that wretched Raymond Fosberton is in the house talking to Aunt Mab. He's walked over from Grenford; and he is going to stay the night."
Valentine groaned, and Jack administered a kick to an unoffending camp-stool.
"What does he want to come here for, I wonder?" continued Barbara. "Silly monkey! you should just see him in his white waistcoat and shiny boots—faugh!" And she choked with wrath.
Raymond's presence certainly did not contribute very much to the happiness of the party. He monopolized the conversation at tea-time, was very high and mighty in his manner, and patronized everybody in turn. He lost his temper playing croquet, and broke one of the mallets; and later on in the evening he cheated at "word-making," and because he failed to win, pronounced it a "stupid game, only fit for kids."
In Barbara, however, he found his match. She cared not two straws for all the Fosbertons alive or dead; and when the visitor, who had been teasing her for some time, went so far as to pull her hair, she promptly dealt him a vigorous box on the ear, a proceeding which so delighted the warlike Jack that he chuckled till bed-time.
Every one felt relieved when it came to tea-time on the following day. Raymond had announced his intention of walking home in the cool of the evening, and Queen Mab proposed that his cousins should accompany him part of the way.
They had walked about a mile, Jack and Helen being a little in advance of the others, when the girl caught hold of her cousin's arm.
"Oh, look!" she said, "there's a man coming who's drunk."