At the moment she only felt glad to be able to say what in words was true.
For hiding they certainly had been. And Mrs. Frere, thoroughly trusting Helena, turned away and thought no more about it, only adding that it must have been rather dirty under the bridge; another time she would advise them to find a cleaner place.
"I suppose it was 'I spy' you were playing at," she said, and she did not notice that no one answered her.
The rest of the afternoon passed quietly enough.
Hugh and Freda were rather unusually quiet, at which their Mother and elder sister rejoiced.
"I do hope," said Sybil, as she drove home with Mrs. Kingley, leaving the younger ones to follow as they had come, "I do hope those Frere children, though they are younger, will have a good influence upon Hugh and the girls, Freda especially. She has been getting wilder and wilder. And Helena is such a lady-like, well-bred little girl."
"I hope so too," said her Mother. "I own I was a little afraid of our children startling the Freres, but they seem to have got on all right."
"Good night, dears," said Mrs. Frere to her three children an hour or so later. "You were happy with your new friends, I hope? I think they seem nice children, and they were very quiet and well-behaved to-day. Leigh, my boy, you look half asleep—are you very tired?"
"My eyes are tired," said Leigh, "and my head, rather."