Miss Wilton was quite right when she left the Chase the day before. She certainly would not have enjoyed being awakened from her early morning slumbers by the wild raid which now took place through the old house. There was a scamper, a rush, some shouts, not only from childish throats, but from a manly and decidedly bass voice. The poor respectable old house would have looked shocked if it could, but who cared what anything looked or felt when Chaos was abroad?
About three hours later a somewhat draggled-looking party might have been seen approaching the Chase. They were all dead tired, and all very untidy, not to say disreputable in appearance. The little girl's brown Holland frock was not only torn, but smeared with mud and some sort of green mossy stuff which produces a deep stain very difficult for laundresses to remove. The little boy was also in a sorry plight, for he had a scratch across his cheek, and his knickers were cut through at the knees; while the big boy, in other words, the man, looked the most untidy, the most fatigued, the most travel-stained of all.
Ermengarde, in her neat white cool frock, with a green sash tied round her slim waist, and her long fair hair streaming down her back, came out to meet this party. She was accompanied by Lucy, who was also neat and fresh and trim. The two had stepped out of the house to gather a few flowers to put on the breakfast-table, and now they assumed all the virtuous airs of those good moral people who do not get up to catch the early worm.
"What a figure you are, Maggie! and what a disgraceful noise you and Eric made this morning," she began, in her most grown-up and icy tones.
"Oh, please don't scold us, Ermengarde," said Mr. Wilton. "Look at our water-lilies, gaze well at them, and be merciful."
Yes, the water-lilies were superb—each jaded conqueror was laden with them—buds and blossom and leaf, all were there—such buds, such blossoms, heavy and fragrant with richness.
Ermie adored flowers. She uttered a little shriek of delight when her father held up a great mass of enormous waxen bells for her to bury her face in.
"Oh, delicious!" she exclaimed, "but how tired you all are!"
"Yes, yes, yes," exclaimed Victor No. 1, "tired and starving, absolutely starving. Get us some breakfast, good Ermie, and put the lilies in water as quickly as you can."
Miss Nelson presided at the breakfast-table, and as this meal was eaten in the comfortable old schoolroom, and as Miss Nelson looked just as usual, just as orderly, just as neat and prim as she did yesterday, and as she would again to-morrow, her presence had a certain calming effect upon the rioters. They ate their meal with some decorum, and not more than three children spoke at the same moment.