The boys always wrote to Mr. Wycherly on Sundays and as they knew he was to be in London over the week-end, he duly received his weekly letters on Monday morning at Morley's Hotel.
Edmund's was, as usual, brief and to the point. He hoped his guardian was well; he announced the cheering intelligence that he himself was well, and after a brief reference to his most recent scores at cricket, concluded with the information: "It is expensive here at school; the munny I came back with is all gone; it is very inconvenient. Could you spair me a little more?"
Montagu talked of his work and of the Greek play they were reading, and then he finished up with: "I had quite a decent letter from Jane-Anne. Whatever made you start her on Byron? I haven't read 'Don Juan' myself, but I suppose I must, as she has, then we can talk about it in the holidays."
Mr. Wycherly read this portion of Montagu's letter three times, frowned over it, pondered it; and finally, apropos of nothing, found himself repeating Miss Stukely's favourite quotation which had remained in his mind with provoking persistency.
"You in your small corner, I in mine." He hadn't the vaguest notion whence this flower of thought was culled, but it occurred to him at that moment that Jane-Anne's small corner must have been considerably enlarged during the last few days if she had read much of "Don Juan."
"It is quite time I returned to Holywell," Mr. Wycherly reflected. "What possible wind of fate has blown 'Don Juan,' of all things, across the child's path? And what in the world will she make of it?"
He went back to Holywell that afternoon, and Jane-Anne carried in his tea in her best parlour-maid manner, only to relapse immediately into herself, falling upon her knees by his chair and covering his hand with kisses the moment she had set down the tray.
"My child, my child," exclaimed Mr. Wycherly, "it is very wonderful and delightful of you to be so glad. But you must get up and sit beside me and pour out tea, and tell me all the news, and what has been happening since I went away, and what you have been doing with yourself?"
"A very great thing has happened," Jane-Anne said solemnly, holding the teapot poised in mid-air. "I have found it."
Mr. Wycherly nearly said, "Found what?" but he stopped himself just in time, and remembered "the mountains," and asked kindly: