Suddenly a woman who was passing stopped.
“Uncle George!” she said in a tone of welcome and surprise.
She was tall and thin and grey-haired and skittish-looking and gaily dressed.
******
“Well, this is a pleasant surprise,” she said. “When you didn’t answer our letter we thought you really weren’t going to come to see us. We really did. And now I find you on your way to our house. What a treat for us! I’d have known you anywhere, dear Uncle George, even if I hadn’t recognised the bath-chair and the muffler that I knitted for you on your last birthday. How sweet of you to wear it! And you’re looking so well!” She dropped a vague kiss upon the woollen muffler and then turned to Ginger. “This little boy can go. I can take you on to the house.” She slipped a coin into Ginger’s hand. “Now run away, little boy! I’ll look after him.”
Ginger, after one bewildered look, fled, and the lady began to push William’s chair along briskly. William was so entirely taken aback that he could for the moment devise no plan of action, and meekly allowed himself to be propelled down the village street. With an instinctive desire to conceal his identity he had pulled the rug up to his elbows and arranged the flowing ends of the all-enveloping scarf to cover the front of his coat. Wistfully he watched Ginger’s figure which was fast disappearing in the distance. Then the tall female bent down and shouted into his ear.
“And how are you, dear Uncle George?”
William looked desperately round for some chance of escape, but saw none. Feeling that some reply was necessary, and not wishing to let his voice betray him he growled.
“So glad,” yelled the tall lady into the muffler. “So glad. If you think you’re better, you will be better you know, as I always used to tell you.”
To his horror, William saw that he was being taken in through a large gateway and up a drive. He felt as though he had been captured by some terrible enemy. Would he ever escape? What would the dreadful woman do to him when she found out? He couldn’t breathe, and he could hardly see, and he didn’t know what was going to happen to him.... He growled again rather ferociously, and she leant down to the presumptive region of his ear and shouted.