“Oh yes,” replied Chrissie glibly. “I know. We did pass that way once, but it’s much nicer to keep to the wide streets.”
“Then you quite understand? You promise to go the way we went this morning,” he repeated.
“Yes, certainly,” said the two together. “Where’s Japs?” Chrissie went on. “I wish he’d come.”
“I’m here,” the little boy called out, running downstairs. “I’m pairfitly ready. I didn’t know you’d come down,” and off the three set.
“Why did you say that about Peter’s Place to the children?” Mrs Fortescue inquired.
“Because,” Mr Fortescue replied—“because I saw something in the papers yesterday about an outbreak of scarlet fever there. It was quickly stopped, and there are no fresh cases, but anything like that lingers about, especially in cottage houses of that sort. And there is not the slightest need to pass anywhere near the place.”
“Of course not,” Mrs Fortescue agreed. “But I am glad you remembered to warn them.”
“It was nothing locally wrong,” he added. “It was brought from a distance, I saw. Yes,” he added, “on the whole, I suppose we are really safer in London from epidemics than in most country places.”
The children reached the church in good time, but though they glanced about as they entered, the little girls saw no one of whom to inquire for the missing prayer-book.
“We must ask as we come out,” whispered Leila, for as yet the misfortune had not been told to Jasper; “and do let us sit in the same place, or as near as we can to where we were this morning, just in case you dropped it there.”