"Who can it possibly be?" they kept on asking themselves and each other.

"Perhaps," said Peter at last, "Dr. Forrest has been attacked by
highwaymen and left for dead, and this is the man he's telegraphed for
to take his place. Mrs. Viney said he had a local tenant to do his work
when he went for a holiday, didn't you, Mrs. Viney?"

"I did so, my dear," said Mrs. Viney from the back kitchen.

"He's fallen down in a fit, more likely," said Phyllis, "all human aid
despaired of. And this is his man come to break the news to Mother."

"Nonsense!" said Peter, briskly; "Mother wouldn't have taken the man
up into Jim's bedroom. Why should she? Listen--the door's opening. Now
they'll come down. I'll open the door a crack."

He did.

"It's not listening," he replied indignantly to Bobbie's scandalised
remarks; "nobody in their senses would talk secrets on the stairs. And
Mother can't have secrets to talk with Dr. Forrest's stable-man--and you
said it was him."

"Bobbie," called Mother's voice.

They opened the kitchen door, and Mother leaned over the stair railing.

"Jim's grandfather has come," she said; "wash your hands and faces and
then you can see him. He wants to see you!" The bedroom door shut again.

"There now!" said Peter; "fancy us not even thinking of that! Let's have
some hot water, Mrs. Viney. I'm as black as your hat."

The three were indeed dirty, for the stuff you clean brass candlesticks
with is very far from cleaning to the cleaner.

They were still busy with soap and flannel when they heard the boots
and the voice come down the stairs and go into the dining-room. And when
they were clean, though still damp--because it takes such a long time
to dry your hands properly, and they were very impatient to see the
grandfather--they filed into the dining-room.

Mother was sitting in the window-seat, and in the leather-covered
armchair that Father always used to sit in at the other house sat--

THEIR OWN OLD GENTLEMAN!

"Well, I never did," said Peter, even before he said, "How do you do?"
He was, as he explained afterwards, too surprised even to remember that
there was such a thing as politeness--much less to practise it.

"It's our own old gentleman!" said Phyllis.

"Oh, it's you!" said Bobbie. And then they remembered themselves and
their manners and said, "How do you do?" very nicely.

"This is Jim's grandfather, Mr. ----" said Mother, naming the old
gentleman's name.

"How splendid!"