unt,' said Medea promptly, with forced cheerfulness.
I--I've known them a long time. I asked them to come.'

The aunt sniffed suspiciously. 'You must come indoors, dear,' she said,
'and lie down. The sun will give you a headache. And you little boys had
better run away home to your tea. Remember, you should not come to pay
visits without your nursemaid.'

Harold had been tugging nervously at my jacket for some time, and I only
waited till Medea turned and kissed a white hand to us as she was led
away. Then I ran. We gained the boat in safety; and 'What an old
dragon!' said Harold.

'Wasn't she a beast!' I replied. 'Fancy the sun giving any one a
headache! But Medea was a real brick. Couldn't we carry her off?'

'We could if Edward was here,' said Harold confidently.

The question was, What had become of that defaulting hero? We were not
left long in doubt. First, there came down the lane the shrill and
wrathful clamour of a female tongue; then Edward, running his best; and
then an excited woman hard on his heel. Edward tumbled into the bottom
of the boat, gasping 'Shove her off!' And shove her off we did,
mightily, while the dame abused us from the bank in the self-same
accents in which Alfred hurled defiance at the marauding Dane.

'That was just like a bit out of _Westward Ho_!' I remarked approvingly,
as we sculled down the stream. 'But what had you been doing to her?'

'Hadn't been doing anything,' panted Edward, still breathless. 'I went
up into the village and explored, and it was a very nice one, and the
people were very polite. And there was a blacksmith's forge there, and
they were shoeing horses, and the hoofs fizzled and smoked, and smelt
so jolly! I stayed there quite a long time. Then I got thirsty, so I
asked that old woman for some water, and while she was getting it her
cat came out of the cottage, and looked at me in a nasty sort of way,
and said something I didn't like. So I went up to it just to--to teach
it manners, and somehow or other, next minute it was up an apple-tree,
spitting, and I was running down the lane with that old thing after me.'

Edward was so full of his personal injuries that there was no
interesting him in Medea at all. Moreover, the evening was closing in,
and it was evident that this cutting-out expedition must be kept for
another day. As we neared home, it gradually occurred to us that perhaps
the greatest danger was yet to come, for the farmer must have missed his
boat