They turned to go home again, for they had not yet half explored the garden, which bid fair to be quite as delightful as the house. A little door in the wall was standing half open, and peeping in, they saw that it led by a footpath to the front door. There Miss Clotilda was standing talking to a funny-looking old man with a canvas bag slung over his back. Miss Clotilda seemed rather annoyed, and was speaking very earnestly.
'You are sure, then, John Parry, quite sure, you have not dropped or left it at the wrong house, or anything like that?'
The old man only smiled amiably in a sort of superior way.
'Sure, miss? To be sure I am. You'll see miss, the letter has never been posted. Good-day to you, miss. Indeed, I am glad the young gentleman and lady's got safe here;' and he trotted off.
'It's about your letter, Neville,' said his aunt. 'I was certain it would turn up this morning. But it has not come, and it makes me uneasy. Just think, if one of your dear papa's letters was to be lost. I have got fidgety about letters and papers, I suppose.'
'It's very queer,' said Neville. 'All our other letters have come quite rightly.'
'Yes,' said Miss Clotilda. 'However, my dears, as I've got you safe here I must not grumble.'
She went back into the house to fetch her garden-hat, in which, Kathie could not help whispering to Neville, she did look a funny old dear. For the hat was about the size of a small clothes-basket, and Miss Clotilda despised all such invisible modes of fastening as elastic and hat-pins. She secured her head-dress with a good honest pair of black ribbon strings, firmly tied, for Ty-gwyn was a blowy place, as might have been expected from its nearness to the sea.
The three spent the rest of the morning most happily in the garden, visiting, too, the now disused dairy, and the poultry-yard, where Miss Clotilda's cocks and hens, in blissful ignorance of the fate before them, were clucking and pecking about.