you young duffer! Where did you meet her?'

Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, 'Hazelbridge.'

Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went he
called out to Oswald--

'Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tyre.'

I am sure Oswald was as quick as anyone could have been, but long
ere the tyre was thoroughly blowed Albert's uncle appeared, with a
collar-stud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenching the
unoffending machine from Oswald's surprised fingers.

Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging himself
into the saddle he set off, scorching down the road at a pace not
surpassed by any highwayman, however black and high-mettled his steed.
We were left looking at each other. 'He must have recognized her,' Dicky
said.

'Perhaps,' Noel said, 'she is the old nurse who alone knows the dark
secret of his highborn birth.'

'Not old enough, by chalks,' Oswald said.

'I shouldn't wonder,' said Alice, 'if she holds the secret of the will
that will make him rolling in long-lost wealth.'

'I wonder if he'll catch her,' Noel said. 'I'm quite certain all his
future depends on it. Perhaps she's his long-lost sister, and the estate
was left to them equally, only she couldn't be found, so it couldn't be
shared up.'

'Perhaps he's only in love with her,' Dora said, 'parted by cruel Fate
at an early age, he has ranged the wide world ever since trying to find
her.'

'I hope to goodness he hasn't--anyway, he's not ranged since we knew
him--never further than Hastings,' Oswald said. 'We don't want any of
that rot.'

'What rot?' Daisy asked. And Oswald said--

'Getting married, and all that sort of rubbish.'

And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn't agree with him. Even
Alice owned that being bridesmaids must be fairly good fun. It's no
good. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give them every
comfort and luxury, and play fair just as if they were boys, but there
is something unmanly about the best of girls. They go silly, like milk
goes sour, without any warning.

When Albert's uncle returned he was very hot, with a beaded brow, but
pale as the Dentist when the peas were at their worst.

'Did you catch her?' H. O. asked.

Albert's uncle's brow looked black as the cloud that thunder will
presently break from. 'No,'he said.

'Is she your long-lost nurse?' H. O. went on, before we could stop him.

'Long-lost grandmother! I knew th