Eleanor and I were as much absorbed by the prospect of the boys’ arrival as we had been by the coming of her parents.
We made a “ruin” at the top of the little gardens, which did not quite fulfil our ideal when all was done, but we hoped that it would look better when the ivy was more luxuriant. We made all the beds look very tidy. The fourth bed was given to me.
“Now you are our sister!” Eleanor cried. “It seems to make it so real now you have got her bed.”
We thoroughly put in order the old nursery, which was now “the boys’ room,” a proceeding in which Growler and Pincher took great interest, jumping on and off the beds, and smelling everything as we set it out. Growler was Clement’s dog, I found, and Pincher belonged to Jack.
“They’ll come in a cab, because of the luggage,” said Eleanor, “and because we are never quite sure when they will come; so it’s no use sending to meet them. They often miss trains on purpose to stay somewhere on the road for fun. But I think they’ll come all right this time—I begged them to—and we’ll go and meet them in the donkey-carriage.”
The donkey-carriage was a pretty little thing on four wheels, with a seat in front and a seat behind, each capable of holding one small person. Eleanor had almost outgrown the front seat, but she managed to squeeze into it, and I climbed in behind. We had dressed Neddy’s head and our own hats liberally with roses, so that our festive appearance drew the notice of the villagers, more than one of whom, from their cottage-doors, asked if we were going to meet “the young gentlemen,” and added, “They’ll be rare and glad to get home, I reckon!”
Impatience had made us early, and we drove some little distance before espying the cab, which toiled uphill at much the same pace as the black snails crawled by the roadside. Eleanor drew up by the ditch, and we stood up and waved our handkerchiefs. In a moment two handkerchiefs were waving from the cab-windows. We shouted, and faint hoorays came back upon the breeze. Neddy pricked his ears, the dogs barked, and only the cabman remained unmoved, though we could see sticks and umbrellas poked at him from within, in the vain effort to induce him to hasten on.
At last we met. The boys tumbled out, one on each side, and a good deal of fragmentary luggage tumbled out after them. Clement seemed to be rather older than Eleanor, and Jack, I thought, a little younger than me.
“How d’ye do, Margery?” said Jack, shaking me warmly by the hand. “I’m awfully glad to hear the news about you; we shall be all square now, two and two, like a quadrille.”
“How do you do, Miss Vandaleur?” said Clement.