“I know what I’ll do,” he said to himself. “I’ll go once again into the forest—I’m not likely to get lost a second time—and I’ll look for the tankard. Of course I may find it, and then mother will be happy again. Oh, dear, to think Rupert is in England! How happy his letter would have made me but for mother, and—hullo! is that you, Kitty?”
“Yes; come down,” called out Kitty from the lawn in front of the house. “I’ve been watching you with Aunt Griselda’s spy-glasses for the last couple of minutes, and you do look solemn.”
“I’m coming,” Phil called back.
He thrust his beloved letter into one of his pockets, and a moment later joined his two cousins on the lawn.
“You have been a time,” said Kitty, “and we have got some wonderful and quite exciting news to tell you—haven’t we, Rachel?”
“You find it exciting, Kitty,” said Rachel in an almost nonchalant voice, “but I dare say Phil will agree with me that it’s almost a bore.”
“What is it?” said Phil.
“Oh, only this—the Marmadukes are coming to-morrow to stay for ten days.”
“The Marmadukes! Who are they?” asked Phil.
“Oh, some children from London. They are our relations—at least, so Aunt Griselda says; and she thinks it will be nice for us to know them. Anyhow, they’re coming—two boys and two girls, and a father and a mother, and a lady’s-maid, and a pug dog, and a parrot. Aunt Grizel is so angry about the pug and the parrot; she wanted to write and tell them all that they couldn’t come, and then Aunt Katharine cried and there was a fuss. It seems they’re more Aunt Katharine’s friends than Aunt Grizel’s. Anyhow, they’re coming, and the pug and the parrot are to stay in Newbolt’s room all the time; so don’t you ask to see them, Phil, or you’ll get into hot water. The best of it is that while they’re here we are all to have holidays, and we can go a great deal into the forest and have picnics if the weather keeps fine. And in the evening Aunt Grizel says she will have the armory lighted, and we children may play there and have charades and tableaux and anything we fancy. Oh, I call it great, splendid fun!” said Kitty, ending with a caper.