An hour later, shopping commissions having been executed, they clanked majestically homeward. The journey was completed without further mishap, though a frisky calf, encountered by the way, almost wrecked its own prospects of ever becoming veal by an untimely indulgence in the game of "Come to Mother, or Last Across the Road,"—that was how Mr. Mablethorpe described it,—gambolling unexpectedly under the very bows of Boanerges in response to the ill-judged appeal of an anxious parent on the opposite side of the highway.
Presently the long red wall, with its polite notice to motorists, came into view on their left, and the car slowed down. Philip realised with pleasure that this was his destination.
"Did you put up that notice, sir?" he enquired.
"I put it up," replied Mr. Mablethorpe, "but my daughter composed it. She makes rather a special feature of the common courtesies of life. Mind your elbow against that gatepost."
Two minutes later Philip found himself being presented to a languid but still pretty lady, who assured him, in a speech which appeared in some curious way to be addressed to Mr. Mablethorpe rather than himself, that she was charmed to meet him, in spite of a headache, and that she had no doubt that fresh servants would ultimately be forthcoming to take the places of those whose resignations the introduction of an unexpected boy into a hitherto tranquil household would naturally precipitate. Adding a mournful postscript to the effect that Philip would doubtless have made an admirable secretary for her husband, but for the fact that his uncle would inevitably insist upon his speedy return to Holly Lodge, Mrs. Mablethorpe, with a look of patient endurance upon her delicate features, faded away upstairs, to bedew herself with eau-de-Cologne and partake of luncheon in bed.
"Friends," observed Mr. Mablethorpe solemnly as his wife disappeared, "are requested to accept this (the only) intimation and invitation. Now, Philip, come and be introduced to my daughter."
The three spent a perfectly happy afternoon together. Miss Dumpling treated "the new inmate," as Mr. Mablethorpe called Philip, with marked favour, introducing him seriatim to three cows, named respectively Boo, Moo, and Coo; a family of lop-eared rabbits; and an aged gramophone suffering from bronchial weakness.
Towards tea-time Mr. Mablethorpe, who knew his wife almost as well as he loved her, penetrated to the invalid's bedroom, and there apologised in the most handsome manner for several crimes which he had not committed. Mrs. Mablethorpe, having delivered herself of a brief homily upon the whole duty of a husband entrusted with the care of a delicate wife, now felt sufficiently recovered to come downstairs and partake of a tea of encouraging dimensions.
Philip surveyed her curiously. His feminine horizon was enlarging itself.
"Julius, dear," observed Mrs. Mablethorpe presently, "I know, of course, that it is perfectly useless to say anything to you about Baby's upbringing,—the child is ruined for life by this time,—but I must protest, however feebly, against your feeding her with that sweet and sticky cake. We shall have her running in and out of the dentist's every five minutes in a year or two."