seekers opened the long
gate and went up the gravel drive between the rhododendrons and other
shrubberies towards the house.

I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of anybody is
called the representative of the family if his father isn't there. This
was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got to the last turn of the
drive it was settled that the others were to noiselessly ambush in the
rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on alone and ask at the house for
the grandmother from India--I mean Miss Ashleigh.

So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how neat
the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all bright and
speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green parrot in a
cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying clean and
untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of his boots and
how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone into the farmyard
after eggs before starting that morning. As he stood there in anxious
uncertainness he heard a low voice among the bushes. It said, "Hist!
Oswald, here!" and it was the voice of Alice.

So he went back to the others among the shrubs, and they all crowded
round their leader, full of impartable news.

"She's not in the house; she's _here_," Alice said, in a low whisper
that seemed nearly all S's. "Close by--she went by just this minute with
a gentleman."

"And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and she's
got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I never saw any
one look so silly in all my born," Dicky said.

"It's sickening," Denny said, trying to look very manly with his legs
wide apart.

"I don't know," Oswald whispered. "I suppose it wasn't Albert's uncle?"

"Not much," Dicky briefly replied.

"Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that with
this other fellow, she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is safe.
And we've really done an unselfish action without having to suffer for
it afterwards." With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he
spoke in real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed.
But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping to look
about her a bit in the shrubbery. "Where's Martha?" Dora suddenly said.

"She went that way," pointingly remarked H. O.

"Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go for?"
Oswald said; "and look sharp. Don'