“That won’t take very long. Phil, this is your uncle Cyril.”
“Do you think I’m like father, Uncle Cyril?” inquired Lady Philippa breathlessly, after bestowing a kiss on her newly found relative.
“His very image,” responded her uncle.
“Oh, I am so glad. Usk is just like mother, and it’s so much nicer to be different. Nurse is always saying we shall grow out of it, but I don’t believe we ever shall.”
“Let us walk up to the house together, Cyril,” said Lord Caerleon. “I want to ask you any number of things. Robert can lead my horse. Phil, you might ride on and tell your mother we are all right, in case she should be worrying about us.”
“Oh yes, we mustn’t let mother get worried,” said Philippa sedately, trotting her pony through the lodge-gate as she spoke.
“Has Nadia started nerves?” asked Cyril of his brother.
“Not exactly, but she gets fearfully anxious about the children and me when we are out of her sight. She does her best to hide it, but even Phil has found it out, as you see. Do you know that when that child was thrown one day when she was out riding with me, she mounted again and we rode on to Aberkerran to get her head plastered up by the doctor there, rather than frighten her mother by coming in with blood on her face? Plucky, wasn’t it?”
“Phil is a chip of the old block, I see. You look pretty flourishing, Caerleon. Any regrets for the lost kingdom?”
“None!” responded Caerleon emphatically. “If I only knew that you were safely out of it too, I should feel perfectly happy.”