ever,
she brought with her two other "grown-ups." Little Jon, who happened to
have painted his naked self bright blue and yellow in stripes out of his
father's water-colour box, and put some duck's feathers in his hair, saw
them coming, and--ambushed himself among the willows. As he had
foreseen, they came at once to his wigwam and knelt down to look inside,
so that with a blood-curdling yell he was able to take the scalps of
"Auntie" June and the woman "grown-up" in an almost complete manner
before they kissed him. The names of the two grown-ups were "Auntie"
Holly and "Uncle" Val, who had a brown face and a little limp, and
laughed at him terribly. He took a fancy to "Auntie" Holly, who seemed
to be a sister too; but they both went away the same afternoon and he did
not see them again. Three days before his father and mother were to come
home "Auntie" June also went off in a great hurry, taking the "grown-up"
who coughed and his piece of putty; and Mademoiselle said: "Poor man, he
was veree ill. I forbid you to go into his room, Jon." Little Jon, who
rarely did things merely because he was told not to, refrained from
going, though he was bored and lonely. In truth the day of the pond was
past, and he was filled to the brim of his soul with restlessness and the
want of something--not a tree, not a gun--something soft. Those last
two days had seemed months in spite of Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he was
reading about Mother Lee and her terrible wrecking bonfire. He had gone
up and down the stairs perhaps a hundred times in those two days, and
often from the day nursery, where he slept now, had stolen into his
mother's room, looked at everything, without touching, and on into the
dressing-room; and standing on one leg beside the bath, like Slingsby,
had whispered:

"Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!" mysteriously, to bring luck. Then, stealing
back, he had opened his mother's wardrobe, and taken a long sniff which
seemed to bring him nearer to--he didn't know what.

He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight, debating
in which of the several ways he should slide down the banisters. They
all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he began descending the steps
one by one. During that descent he could remember his father quite
distinctly--the short grey beard, the deep eyes twinkling, the furrow
between them, the funny smile, the thin figure which always seemed so
tall to little Jon; but his mother h