Jane-Anne was strung up to the highest pitch of expectation. Although she had seen comparatively little of the "young gentlemen" when she first came to Holywell, she had heard about them so much and so constantly from the master, that she felt she, too, owned them. There was, moreover, the delightful sense of an "understanding" with Montagu. He had asked her to look after his guardian and she had done her best. Moreover, quick and sympathetic always, she early realised that not even the Greek Myths were so entrancing a subject to Mr. Wycherly as these two boys of his, and during their walks together she invariably led the conversation in their direction, and found it an easy and fascinating path.
At last the great day came. The boys were to meet in London and come down together to Oxford by a train getting in just before tea.
At the last moment Mr. Wycherly bade Jane-Anne come with him to the station.
She was pale with excitement and could hardly speak.
When at last the train came in and the boys, brown and jolly and full of rejoicing at getting home, jumped on to the platform, and the first exciting greetings had passed, Jane-Anne suddenly flung her arms round Edmund's neck and burst into tears upon his shoulder.
Edmund looked across the weeping damsel at his guardian in comical dismay. "I say," he exclaimed. "If she does this when she meets me, whatever will she do when we go away?"
"I beg your pardon, Master Edmund," sobbed Jane-Anne, hastily withdrawing her arms, "but we have wanted it so, and now it's come."
"Well, that's nothing to cry for," Montagu said, patting her back consolingly. "Cheer up."
Jane-Anne dried her eyes, and the four went home in a cab laden with luggage.
The next few days drove Mrs. Dew almost to desperation. It was impossible to make Jane-Anne "keep herself to herself," as that good woman considered decorous and desirable.