there was no mistake, no shadow of a mistake. The
boy in the photograph was the man with the wheelbarrow, or the other way
about, which possibly might be the more correct method of expressing the
matter. But, whichever the method, the fact remained the same.
Trix stared harder at the photograph, cogitating, bewildered. Below it
was written in Mrs. Arbuthnot's rather sprawling handwriting, "T. D.,
aged five. A. G., aged fourteen. Byestry, 1892."
Who on earth was A. G.? Trix searched the recesses of her mind. And then
suddenly, welling up like a bubbling spring, came memory. Why, of course
A. G. was the boy she used to play with, the boy--she began to remember
things clearly now--who had tried to sail across the pond, and with whom
she had gone to search for pheasants' eggs. A dozen little details came
back to her mind, even the sound of the boy's voice, and his laugh, a
curiously infectious laugh.
Oh, she remembered him distinctly, vividly. But, what--and there lay the
puzzlement, the bewilderment--was the boy, now grown to manhood, doing
with a wheelbarrow in the grounds of Chorley Old Hall, and, moreover,
dressed as a gardener, working as a gardener, and speaking--well, at any
rate speaking after the manner of a gardener? Perhaps to have said,
speaking as though he were on a different social footing from Trix, would
have better expressed Trix's meaning. But she chose her own phraseology,
and doubtless it conveyed to her exactly what she did mean. Anyhow, it
was an amazing riddle, an insoluble riddle. Trix stared at the
photograph, finding no answer to it.
Finding no answer she left the book open at the page, and returned to the
sticking in of prints. But every now and then her eyes wandered to the
big volume at the other end of the table, wonderment and query possessing
her soul.
Maunder appeared just as Trix had finished her task. Helpful,
business-like, she approached the table, a gleam spelling order and
tidiness in her eye.
"Leave that album, please," said Trix, seeing the helpful Maunder about
to shut and bear away the book containing the boy's photograph.
Maunder hesitated, sighed conspicuously, and left the book, occupying
herself instead with putting away the stickphast, the scissors, the now
not as clean blotting-paper, and somewhat resignedly picking up small
shreds of paper which were scattered upon the table-cloth and carpet. In
the midst of these occupations the dressing-gong sounded. Maunder
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