'It would be a jolly place for a picnic,' said Frances. 'I wonder if it's picnickers who've been here, or gipsies.'

'Real gipsies choose opener places generally,' said Jacinth. 'Still this would be a very cosy place in hot weather, but I suspect it's only been picnics. Let's remember it for next summer, Francie, and try to coax Aunt Alison to let us bring our dinner or at least our tea with us one nice hot day.'

'It wouldn't be much fun all by ourselves,' said Frances. 'If we could ask the Harpers to come too some holiday, _that_ would be fun.'

'Oh how you tease about the Harpers!' replied Jacinth impatiently. 'I daresay you'll have quarrelled with them long before next summer, as you did with the Beckinghams.'

'Jacinth, it's very unkind of you to say that,' said Frances, indignantly. 'I _didn't_ quarrel with the Beckinghams, only you wouldn't have had me stand Priscilla saying that papa and mamma can't care for us much if they leave us all these years without troubling to come home to see us.'

'It was very impertinent,' said the elder sister, 'but I think you make friends too quickly. You told Priscilla Beckingham our whole history almost the first day we were at school. None of the girls would say such a thing as that to _me_.'

Frances was on the brink of a still more indignant reply, when Phebe--one of whose best points was a very sweet temper, which made her always ready to avert a storm if she could--broke in, just in time.

'Miss Jacinth,' she said, 'I think we should be turning towards home.

We've been here longer than you'd think, and Master Eugene will be getting tired.'

'I'm not a bit tired,' said the little boy, 'but I'll tell you what I am, or what I'm going to be, and that's awfully nungry. Talking of bringing our dinner or tea out with us next summer has put it into my head. If even I'd a bit of bread, I'd eat it.'

'Come on, then,' said Jacinth, encouragingly, 'the sooner we go, the sooner we'll be home. And we can have tea the minute we get in, can't we, Phebe, even if it's not quite five o'clock.'

'Certainly, miss, I don't think there'll be any difficulty about that,'

said Phebe, who was pretty well persuaded in her own mind that it would be quite the orthodox tea-time before they could reach Market Square Place.

The first part of the way was pleasant walking, even though they were beginning to be just a little tired, for it was over level ground; but the next two miles were stiffer, for they were almost entirely up-hill, which had naturally made the outstart down-hill, an easy commencement of the expedition.

Eugene was soon rather done up, though he would not hear of Phebe's carrying him.

'If it wasn't so climby, I wouldn't mind,' he said, 'but my legs does get so tired of always shortening themselves up.'

'Never mind, Master Eugene,' said the maid; 'we'll be at the back end of the Redbreast Lane, directly, and after that, there's no more climbing.'

'And once there we shall be less than a mile from home,' said Jacinth.

'Oh Francie, do you remember how nice it was at Stannesley with the old donkey, whenever we were going a long walk?'

'And granny watching for us at home with tea in her own sitting-room for a treat, and those _exquisite_ little scones,' said Frances. 'Oh don't speak of it.'

'No, please don't,' said Eugene, 'for it makes me nungrier and nungrier.

And--I'm afraid I'm beginning to be _firsty_ too, and that's worser than being nungry. It always says so in shipwreck stories. They read us one at school the other day, and it said so.'

'Eugene, how silly you are!' said Frances, 'as if your feeling a little hungry and a tiny atom thirsty could compare with dreadful sufferings like sailors have.'

'And really, Eugene, considering you're past seven, you should try to speak better,' added Jacinth. 'I hope you don't say "nungry and firsty"

at school. How they must laugh at you!'

'They don't then,' said the little boy, 'and they don't need to. I'm very pertickler at school, and I always say 'ungry and wursty properly.

But it's a great trouble to remember, and I like a rest from being pertickler at home. You needn't be so cross. Why, there's a boy at school, older than me, who calls the sun the "fun"--he does really.'

'Well, I know papa and mamma would like you to speak well,' said Jacinth, 'so you should try for their sake. "Ungry" is worse than "nungry"; you mustn't get into the way of dropping your "h's," whatever you do. That matters more than baby talking; it's _vulgar_.'

'It's very unkind of you to call me vulgar,' said Eugene, in a very plaintive voice, 'and I'll tell you what, Ja.s.s, I'm getting _so_ fir--wursty, I mean, that I just can't go all the way back wifout a drink.'

Jacinth and Frances looked about them in despair; Eugene was a very good little fellow generally, but he was rather delicate and nervous, and notwithstanding the dignity of his seven years, they knew by experience that once he was fairly started on a fit of crying, it was far from easy to predict when it would be over. They were now in the long lane known as Robin Redbreast Lane, or the Redbreast Lane; another quarter of a mile at most would bring them out on to the high-road, where they were at no great distance from Thetford.

'I'm afraid it's been too long a walk for him,' said Jacinth. 'It's such a pity, for it's so good for him to have a nice country walk, now that he goes to school every day.'

'I'm not tired,' said Eugene, 'I'm only firsty now; I can wait for being nungry till tea-time, quite well, but I must have somefin to drink.'

'Is there any cottage along this lane, that we could ask for a gla.s.s of water at?' Jacinth inquired of Phebe.

But the girl shook her head.

'There's no cottage nor house of any kind between this and the high-road, except the Robin Redbreast itself,' said she. 'And that's not a place where one could ask for a gla.s.s of water even. The old lady's very stiff in her ways, and the servants are just the same.'

'Oh no,' said Jacinth, 'of course it wouldn't do to ask for anything at a _gentleman's_ house. You must just bear it, Eugene dear, and perhaps we'll pa.s.s some cottage when we leave the lane; though I'm not very fond of drinking water at any cottage--one's never sure of its being good.'

'There's the drinking fountain just outside the town; I daresay Master Eugene can get along till we come to that,' said Phebe, encouragingly.

And for a few moments nothing more was heard of the little boy's woes.

He plodded along silently, till just as they were approaching 'Uncle Marmy's gate' as they called it, he burst out again.

'I _must_ have a drink, Ja.s.s. I tell you I must. Let me go and ask for one at this house. It wouldn't be naughty. I _can't_ go any furder.'

The girls hesitated. It went very much against the grain with them--with Jacinth especially--to let the boy go up to the front door of this strange house to ask for the boon of even a gla.s.s of water. And yet it wouldn't do to let him go to the back-door, 'as if we were beggars,'

said Frances.

'Would it be better to send Phebe? Well, perhaps that would be best.

Phebe, will you go with Master Eugene--to the front door? But Eugene, you are really very tiresome,' said the elder girl.

'I _must_ have a drink, Jacinth. It's not my fault. I can't help being firsty,' said the boy, in his doleful tone. 'If you say I mustn't, I'll _try_ to bear it, but'----

At this moment an unexpected turn was given to the state of affairs by the gate, a few feet in front of them, being pushed open, to allow some one to come out.

The sound interrupted the children's discussion; they all looked towards the gate.

The 'some one' was an elderly, more correctly speaking, perhaps, an old lady. She was not _very_ tall, but she was thin, and, considering her years, wonderfully erect. As she stood there at the gate, her thick black silk skirt trailing a little, a large fleecy white shawl thrown round her head and shoulders--her bright dark eyes glancing out all the darker and brighter from the contrast with her snowy hair and draperies--she looked both striking and stately. Not a person to take liberties with, a.s.suredly.

Phebe shook in her shoes. As I have said, there was a considerable amount of awe felt in Thetford for the somewhat mysterious inhabitant of Robin Redbreast, and Phebe was a Thetford girl.

As for the young Mildmays, they stood motionless, not overawed, but both impressed and startled, gazing at the unexpected apparition in a way which Jacinth afterwards hoped to herself had not seemed like ill-bred staring.

But the lady was looking at them too. She had a stick in her hand--a polished black-wood stick, with a gold k.n.o.b at the top--and for the first moment or two she stood as if leaning on it. Then she raised it with a little gesture, as if inviting them to come nearer.

'What was that name I heard you say just now?' she began. 'I heard you from the other side of my garden-wall. I have quick ears, though I am old.'

The mention of ears was unfortunate. Somehow it recalled the story of Red Riding-hood and her grandmother to Eugene; tired and excited already, he grew perfectly white and caught hold of his elder sister's dress. And for a moment or two the presence of mind of the whole party seemed to have deserted them. No one spoke.

The old lady tapped her stick impatiently on the hard gravel.