more to the hour at which she says she
means to go to bed--not very long after you."

"Still you will have dinner--won't you, mummie?" Eustace said.

"Certainly," Mrs. Orban answered with a smile; "and I don't think
it would be a bad plan for you and Nesta to stay up for it, if you
will promise not to get up quite so early in the morning. We will
have dinner directly after Peter and Becky are in bed; but we won't
sit up late ourselves, any of us."

Mrs. Orban certainly showed no signs of nervousness to-day; the
strained expression had left her eyes; she was laughing and talking
quite naturally.

"I suppose," thought Eustace, "she was partly upset by the parcel
from England."

"Father," Nesta exclaimed, "I'm certain I hear a horse coming up
the hill. Who can it be at this time of day?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said her father; "it might be one of a
dozen people. You had better go and sing out 'friend or foe' over
the veranda; but I dare say it isn't a horse at all. More probably
it is old Hadji with the mail bag that ought to have come with the
parcel yesterday."

But the three elder children had disappeared out on to the veranda
and were leaning over, straining their eyes down the road that
wound up the hill from the plain.

It was a very rough road, with ruts in it sometimes two or three
feet deep. During the rains little better than a bog, it was now
burnt hard as flint.

There was nothing to be seen though a mile of road was visible,
lost now and then among bends; but the children listened
breathlessly, and at last Eustace said,--

"It is two horses and a four-wheel buggy, and it has only just
begun the hill. Let's go in and tell father."

"Oh, what a bother it is so far off!" Nesta exclaimed, with a sigh
of impatience. "We shall have to wait ages to find out who it is."

"Who do you think it can be, father?" Peter asked, as Eustace
explained what he believed to be coming.

"How should I know?" Mr. Orban answered with mock seriousness.

"It might be a magician with milk-white steeds, or a fairy
godmother, Peter, in a coach made out of pumpkins," said Mrs.
Orban.

"O mother!" Peter cried impatiently, "don't be silly--"

The sentence was never completed; it finished in a howl of mingled
pain and rage.

"What on earth is the matter now?" asked Mr. Orban.

"Eustace ki-ki-kicked me," stormed Peter, making a dive at his
brother with doubled fists; but his father caught him and held him
pinioned.