first. In fact the first
thing they noticed about the old gentleman was his hand.

It was one morning as they sat on the fence waiting for the Green
Dragon, which was three and a quarter minutes late by Peter's Waterbury
watch that he had had given him on his last birthday.

"The Green Dragon's going where Father is," said Phyllis; "if it were
a really real dragon, we could stop it and ask it to take our love to
Father."

"Dragons don't carry people's love," said Peter; "they'd be above it."

"Yes, they do, if you tame them thoroughly first. They fetch and carry
like pet spaniels," said Phyllis, "and feed out of your hand. I wonder
why Father never writes to us."

"Mother says he's been too busy," said Bobbie; "but he'll write soon,
she says."

"I say," Phyllis suggested, "let's all wave to the Green Dragon as it
goes by. If it's a magic dragon, it'll understand and take our loves to
Father. And if it isn't, three waves aren't much. We shall never miss
them."

So when the Green Dragon tore shrieking out of the mouth of its dark
lair, which was the tunnel, all three children stood on the railing and
waved their pocket-handkerchiefs without stopping to think whether they
were clean handkerchiefs or the reverse. They were, as a matter of fact,
very much the reverse.

And out of a first-class carriage a hand waved back. A quite clean hand.
It held a newspaper. It was the old gentleman's hand.

After this it became the custom for waves to be exchanged between the
children and the 9.15.

And the children, especially the girls, liked to think that perhaps the
old gentleman knew Father, and would meet him 'in business,' wherever
that shady retreat might be, and tell him how his three children stood
on a rail far away in the green country and waved their love to him
every morning, wet or fine.

For they were now able to go out in all sorts of weather such as they
would never have been allowed to go out in when they lived in their
villa house. This was Aunt Emma's doing, and the children felt more and
more that they had not been quite fair to this unattractive aunt, when
they found how useful were the long gaiters and waterproof coats that
they had laughed at her for buying for them.

Mother, all this time, was very busy with her writing. She used to send
off a good many long blue envelopes with stories in them--and large
envelopes of different sizes and colours used to come to her. Sometimes
she would sigh when s