I walked home through the village—that end of it, that's to say, the south end—past the doctor's house, with a big plate on the door, 'Dr. Hepland,' and the one or two everything shops (don't you love 'everything' shops? I do. I stood at the door of one of them, to sniff the jolly mixty-maxty, regular country shop smell), and the post office. And then I felt I knew the place pretty tidily for a beginning. There was lots of time. I'd seen what o'clock it was at the church, so I strolled along comfortably. Some of the people stared at me a bit. It was rather early in the season for visitors, you see. But I didn't mind. I just stood still, with my hands behind me, and looked well round at the view and everything.
Behind the church the ground rises, and up there, there was a house, standing by itself and looking rather new. I remembered what Mrs. Parsley had said.
'That must be the getting-well Home for children,' I thought. 'I'd like to see through it. Perhaps we might have some of the children to tea one day, when we're at the farm. The wellest ones; it would be rather fun.'
I'd a good deal to tell the girls about when we got home, hadn't I?
But, after all, we didn't tell them very much that night. For both mums and I were pretty tired, though everything had been so nice. The train going home was a much slower one. When we got near London, it seemed to stop at every station. My goodness! it was tiresome. And we were hungry too, for we'd only had luncheon at Mossmoor; we had to leave too soon for tea, and, besides, mother didn't want to give Mrs. Parsley so much trouble.
Father was going to be late that night. He wasn't coming in to dinner at all. I didn't much mind, for it was all the nicer for me. Mums and I had a sort of picnic dinner—with tea, you know, like what people often have when they arrive very late after a journey. And we talked over about the rooms and everything quietly. The girls were all in bed. We just went in to see them. Hebe was the widest awake; and she was so pleased to hear that perhaps there'd be room for her too at Mossmoor if she was a good girl, and got nearly quite well at Ventnor.
And the next morning we told all of them everything about it. I had to begin at the beginning, and tell about the railway, and how pretty the fields looked, and what a lovely station there was at Fewforest, and the drive in the pony phaeton, and how red the fat boy's ears were; and then about the house and Mrs. Parsley, and the rooms, and everything.
I hadn't time to tell about my walk through the village till luncheon—mum's luncheon, I mean, which is our dinner. And then I began about the nice old church; they were very pleased, Anne most of all. But just as I was telling about the lady I'd seen, and how I couldn't remember how I seemed to know her face, all of a sudden it plumped into my mind. I threw down my knife and fork on my plate. I'm afraid they made a clatter, for mums jumped. It was partly perhaps that I called out so.
'I know who it was. It's that girl—Miss Cross-at-first, you know, Anne,' for that was the name we'd given her, and, indeed, I didn't remember her real name.
'Miss what, Jack?' said mums; while Anne said quietly, 'Oh yes, I know. How funny!'