'Do tell me about it, mamma,' I said. 'Is it some one else coming to stay with us? Where could we put any one?'
Taisy began to laugh.
'That's the fun of it,' she said. 'It's another snail—some one who will bring his house with him!'
Mamma laughed too, but I could see that she was thinking over the new proposal, whatever it was, rather seriously. Then between them they told me all about it.
It appeared that Aunt Emmeline's friend, Miss Merry, had a nephew, the son of a sister, much, much younger than herself, who had died some years ago. The boy's father was in India, so he sometimes, though not always, spent his holidays with his aunt. And this spring something had happened—I forget what exactly—illness at his school, or his leaving school for some reason, sooner than had been expected—which left him with nowhere to go to for some time.
'As ill-luck would have it,' Lady Emmeline wrote to mother, 'just as Taisy had gone to you, and Bertha Merry and I were settled cosily together, down comes this thunderbolt in the shape of a great hobbledehoy of a boy, who would be utterly out of his element with two elderly ladies and sure to get into mischief. Not that he is not a nice fellow and a good boy—I know him to be both, otherwise I would certainly not propose what I am going to do.'
And this was the proposal which she had written about—she or Miss Merry, or both perhaps—to Taisy too—that Rolf should come to us at the Hut, and join Geordie, if possible, in his lessons with Mr. Lloyd, and be just one of the family for the time. He would be as happy as a boy could be; of that his aunt was sure, and would do anything in his power, like a big brother, to help mamma with the younger ones. But the fun of the thing was, that he would bring his room with him! There would be no difficulty about the expense of it. His father was rich and Rolf an only child, and his aunt was free to spend whatever she thought right upon him, and being a very energetic little woman, as I think many old maids are, she had already written to some place where such things were to be got, to get sizes and prices and everything required for a neat little iron room, fitted up as a bedroom; and if mamma was so very, very kind as to agree to take him in, Rolf would be ready to come the very next week.
Of course we talked it over a lot. It had to be considered if Hoskins and Margery could manage another guest, and we were almost surprised to find how pleased Hoskins was about it. 'Miss Theresa,' she said, 'was such a help; there had not seemed half so much to do since she came. And the weather was getting so nice and mild, we would scarcely need fires at all soon, except perhaps 'a little bit, of an evening in the drawing-room.' And it would be such a good thing for Master George to have a companion a little older than himself before going to school, which mamma in her own mind had already thought the same about.
I never knew Hoskins quite so cheery about anything. I think the truth was, that she had thoroughly enjoyed the gypsy mystification which had been confided to her. And I believe, at the bottom of her heart, she thought that somehow or other Taisy had had a sudden gift of prediction, and that it would be very unlucky to refuse to receive the unlooked-for visitor.
Anyhow it ended in mamma's writing to Aunt Emmeline and Miss Merry, consenting pleasantly to Rolf's joining us, provided he promised, or they for him, to be content with our present very simple quarters and way of living.