The puppy was plump and playful and amber-eyed, and rather like Molly, as Eddy remarked.
“The Diddums! I wish I was like him,” Molly returned, hugging him, while his brother and sister tumbled about her ankles. “He’s rather fatter than Wasums, Daffy, but not quite so tubby as Babs. I thought you should have the middle one.”
“He’s an utter joy,” said Daphne, taking him.
“Perhaps I’d better walk down the lane with you when you go,” said Molly, “so as to break the parting for him. But come in to tea now, won’t you.”
“Shall we, Eddy?” said Daphne. “D’you think we should? There’ll be canons’ wives at home.”
“That settles it,” said Eddy. “There won’t be us. Much as I like canons’ wives, it’s rather much on one’s very first day. I have to get used to these things gradually, or I get upset. Come on, Molly, there’s time for one go at bumble-puppy before tea.”
They went off together, and Daphne stayed about the stables and yard with the boys and the dogs.
The Bellairs’ had that immensely preferable sort of tea which takes place round a table, and has jam and knives. They didn’t have this at the Deanery, because people do drop in so at Deaneries, and there mightn’t be enough places laid, besides, drawing-room tea is politer to canons and their wives. So that alone would have been a reason why Daphne and Eddy liked tea with the Bellairs’. Also, the Bellairs’ en famille were a delightful and jolly party. Colonel Bellairs was hospitable, genial, and entertaining; Mrs. Bellairs was most wonderfully kind, and rather like Molly on a sobered, motherly, and considerably filled-out scale. They were less enlightened than at the Deanery, but quite prepared to admit that the Prayer Book ought to be revised, if the Dean thought so, though for them, personally, it was good enough as it stood. There were few people so kind-hearted, so genuinely courteous and well-bred.
Colonel Bellairs, though a little sorry for the Dean because Eddy didn’t seem to be settling down steadily into a sensible profession—(in his own case the “What to do with our boys” problem had always been very simple)—was fond of his friend’s son, and very kind to him, and thought him a nice, attractive lad, even if he hadn’t yet found himself. He and his wife both hoped that Eddy would make this discovery before long, for a reason they had.
After tea Claude and Molly started back with the Olivers, to break the parting for Diddums. Eddy wanted to tell Molly about his prospects, and for her to tell him how interesting they were (Molly was always so delightfully interested in anything one told her), so he and she walked on ahead down the lane, in the pale light of the Christmas moon, that rose soon after tea. (It was a year when this occurred).