llowed them just as it did before, and poor
aunt set her teeth and said nothing to uncle, as she knew he would only
tell her stories, and they were walking on, not saying a word, when
something made her look back, and there was a horrible boy with red
hair, peeping through the hedge just behind, and grinning. She said it
was a dreadful face, with something unnatural about it, as if it had
been a dwarf, and before she had time to have a good look, it popped
back like lightning, and aunt all but fainted away.'

'A red-headed _boy_?' said Darnell. 'I thought----What an extraordinary
story this is. I've never heard of anything so queer. Who was the boy?'

'You will know in good time,' said Mrs. Darnell. 'It _is_ very strange,
isn't it?'

'Strange!' Darnell ruminated for a while.

'I know what I think, Mary,' he said at length. 'I don't believe a word
of it. I believe your aunt is going mad, or has gone mad, and that she
has delusions. The whole thing sounds to me like the invention of a
lunatic.'

'You are quite wrong. Every word is true, and if you will let me go on,
you will understand how it all happened.'

'Very good, go ahead.'

'Let me see, where was I? Oh, I know, aunt saw the boy grinning in the
hedge. Yes, well, she was dreadfully frightened for a minute or two;
there was something so queer about the face, but then she plucked up a
spirit and said to herself, "After all, better a boy with red hair than
a big man with a gun," and she made up her mind to watch Uncle Robert
closely, as she could see by his look he knew all about it; he seemed as
if he were thinking hard and puzzling over something, as if he didn't
know what to do next, and his mouth kept opening and shutting, like a
fish's. So she kept her face straight, and didn't say a word, and when
he said something to her about the fine sunset, she took no notice.
"Don't you hear what I say, Marian?" he said, speaking quite crossly,
and bellowing as if it were to somebody in the next field. So aunt said
she was very sorry, but her cold made her so deaf, she couldn't hear
much. She noticed uncle looked quite pleased, and relieved too, and she
knew he thought she hadn't heard the whistling. Suddenly uncle pretended
to see a beautiful spray of honeysuckle high up in the hedge, and he
said he must get it for aunt, only she must go on ahead, as it made him
nervous to be watched. She said she would, but she just stepped aside
behind a bush where there was a sor