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CHAPTER X.

I told no one. It was bad enough to think of by myself. I could not have talked about it. But every day I expected that the Old Squire would send a letter or a policeman, or come himself, and rage and storm, and tell Father.

He never did; and no one seemed to suspect that anything had gone wrong, except that Mother fidgeted because I looked ill, and would show me to Dr. Solomon. It is a good thing doctors tell you what they think is the matter, and don’t ask you what you think, for I could not have told him about the Squire. He said I was below par, and that it was our abominable English climate, and he sent me a bottle of tonic. And when I had taken half the bottle, and had begun to leave off watching for the policeman, I looked quite well again. So I took the rest, not to waste it, and thought myself very lucky. My only fear now was that Bessy’s aunt might ask after the hose-in-hose. But she never did.

I had one more fright, where I least expected it. It had never occurred to me that Lady Catherine would take an interest in our game, and want to know what we had done, and what we were doing, and what we were going to do, or I should have been far more afraid of her than of Bessy’s aunt. For the Weeding Woman has a good deal of delicacy, and often begs pardon for taking liberties; but if Aunt Catherine takes an interest, and wants to know, she asks one question after another, and does not think whether you like to answer or not.

She took an interest in our game after one of Christopher’s luncheons with her.

She often asks Chris to go there to luncheon, all by himself. Father is not very fond of his going, chiefly, I fancy, because he is so fond of Chris, and misses him. Sometimes, in the middle of luncheon, he looks at Christopher’s empty place, and says, “I wonder what those two are talking about over their pudding. They are the queerest pair of friends.” If we ask Chris what they have talked about, he wags his head, and looks very well pleased with himself, and says, “Lots of things. I tell her things, and she tells me things.” And that is all we can get out of him.

A few weeks afterwards, after I lost the hose-in-hose, Chris went to have luncheon with Aunt Catherine, and he came back rather later than usual.

“You must have been telling each other a good deal to-day, Chris,” I said.

“I told her lots,” said Chris, complacently. “She didn’t tell me nothing, hardly. But I told her lots. My apple fritter got cold whilst I was telling it. She sent it away, and had two hot ones, new, on purpose for me.”

“What did you tell her!”

“I told her your story; she liked it very much. And I told her Daffodils, and about my birthday; and I told her Cowslips–all of them. Oh, I told her lots. She didn’t tell me nothing.”

A few days later, Aunt Catherine asked us to tea–all of us–me, Arthur, Adela, Harry, and Chris. And she asked us all about our game. When Harry said, “I dig up, but Mary plants–not in our garden, but in wild places, and woods, and hedges, and fields,” Lady Catherine blew her nose very loud, and said, “I should think you don’t do much digging and planting in that field your Father went to law about?” and my teeth chattered so with fright that I think Lady Catherine would have heard them if she hadn’t been blowing her nose. But, luckily for me, Arthur said, “Oh, we never go near Mary’s Meadow, now, we’re so busy.” And then Aunt Catherine asked what made us think of my name, and I repeated most of the bit from Alphonse Karr, for I knew it by heart now; and Arthur repeated what John Parkinson says about the “Honisuckle that groweth wild in every hedge,” and how he left it there, “to serve their senses that travel by it, or have no garden;” and then he said, “So Mary is called Traveller’s Joy, because she plants flowers in the hedges, to serve their senses that travel by them.”