She set about it quickly enough, and what with her nervousness, her sympathy for that mother across the Rothel, her anxiety for the Colonel, her fear of the trial to which his powers of endurance were about to be put, and the description of his silent suffering during the last week, she failed to notice that Aileen said nothing. The girl busied herself with setting the table and preparing tea, Mrs. Caukins, meanwhile, rocking comfortably in her chair and easing her heart of its heavy burden by continual drippings of talk after the main flow of her tale was exhausted.
Presently, just after sunset, the twins came rushing in. Evidently they were full of secrets—they were always a close corporation of two—and their inane giggles and breathless suppression of what they were obviously longing to impart to their mother and Aileen, told on Mrs. Caukins' already much worn nerves.
"I wish you wouldn't stay out so long after sundown, children, you worry me to death. I don't say but the quarries are safe enough, but I do say you never can tell who's round after dusk, and growing girls like you belong at home."
She spoke fretfully. The twins exchanged meaning glances that were lost on their mother, who was used to their ways, but not on Aileen.
"Where have you been all this time, Dulcie?" she asked rather indifferently. Her short teaching experience had shown her that the only way to gain children's confidence is not to display too great a curiosity in regard to their comings and goings, their doings and undoings. "Tave and I didn't see you anywhere when we drove up."
The twins looked at each other and screwed their lips into a violently repressive contortion.
"We've been over to the sheepfolds with 'Lias."
"Why, 'Lias has been out in the barn for the last half hour—what were you doing over there, I'd like to know?" Their mother spoke sharply, for untruth she would not tolerate.
"We did stay with 'Lias till he got through, then we played ranchmen and made believe round up the cattle the way the boys wrote us they do." Two of their brothers were in the West trying their fortune on a ranch and incidentally "dovetailing into the home business," as the Colonel defined their united efforts along the line of mutton raising.
"Well, I never!" their mother ejaculated; "I suppose now you'll be making believe you're everything the other boys are going to be."