"Aunt Alice!" I heard her saying. "Why didn't you tell us to meet you?"
"Why didn't I tell you?" demanded the stout lady. "The moment you left me I knew I'd made a mistake in letting you come over here on one of your absurd larks! And from the row I had getting into the premises I judge that you're at your old tricks. Fired upon! Treated as though I were an outlaw! You shall never go out of my sight again!"
"Oh, please don't scold me!" Alice pleaded and turning to me: "This is Bob Singleton, your nephew."
Mrs. Bashford—and I made no question that Searles's companion was indubitably my uncle's widow—gave me her hand and smiled in a way that showed that she was not so greatly displeased with Alice as her words implied.
"Pay that driver for me and don't fail to tip him. Those Methuselahs at the gate all but killed him. It was only the vigorous determination of this gentleman, who very generously permitted me to share the only motor at the station, that I got through the gates alive! I beg your pardon, but what is your name?"
"Mrs. Bashford," I interposed, "my friend, Mr. Searles."
"Mr. Searles!" cried Alice, dropping a cage containing some weird Oriental bird which had been among my aunt's impedimenta. The bird squawked hideously.
"Miss Violet Dewing, permit me to present the author of 'Lady Larkspur'!"
Poor Torrence, clinging to a pillar for support, now revived sufficiently to be included in the introductions.
It was a week later that Alice and I sat on the stone wall watching the waves, at the point forever memorable as the scene of our first talk.