“We’ll go over,” cried Dick, as he climbed and scrambled over a low thicket of brush.
Dolly scrambled through, somehow, and the two children that emerged on the other side of the brush were quite different in appearance from the two sedate-looking ones that Mr. Halkett had left behind him.
Dick’s white collar had received a smudge, his stocking was badly torn, and his cheek showed a long scratch.
Dolly’s white frock was a sight! Her pretty tan coat had lost a button or two, and her hat was still in the bushes.
“Hey, Doddy, hey, for the brook!” shouted Dick, and grasping each other’s hands, they ran for the rippling water.
“Oh!” cried Dolly, her eyes shining. “Did you ever!”
To the very edge of the brook they went, dabbling their fingers in the clear stream, and merrily splashing water on each other.
All this would have been a harmless performance enough if they had been in play clothes, but the effect on their travelling costumes was most disastrous.
Leaning over the mossy bank to reach the water caused fearful green stains on white piqué and on light-grey knickerbockers. Hands became grimy, and faces hot and smudgy. But blissfully careless of all this, the children frolicked and capered about, rejoiced to find the delightful country spot and quite oblivious to the fact that they were on their way to their new home.
“Let’s wade,” said Dick, and like a flash, off came four muddy shoes, and four grass-greened stockings. Oh, how good the cool ripply water did feel! and how they chuckled with glee as they felt the wavelets plashing round their ankles.
Across the brook were the dearest wild flowers, – pink, yellow, and white.
“We must gather some,” said Dolly. “Can we wade across?”
“Yep; I guess so. It doesn’t look deep. Come on.”
Taking hands again, they stepped cautiously, and succeeded in crossing the shallow brook, though, incidentally, well dampening the piqué skirt, and the grey knickerbockers.
Sitting down on the mossy bank, they picked handfuls of the flowers and wondered what they were.
“Hollo! Hollo!” called Michael’s voice from the road, where he sat holding his horses.
“All right, Michael! In a minute,” shrilled back the childish voices.
And they really meant to go in a minute, but the fascination of the place held them, and they kept on picking flowers, and grubbing among the roots and stones at the edge of the water.
“We really ought to go,” said Dolly. “Come on, Dick. Oh, look at the birds!”
A large flock of birds flew low through the sky, and as they circled and wheeled, the children watched them eagerly.
“They’re birds coming North for the summer,” said Dick. “See those falling behind! They don’t like the way the flock is going, and they’re going to turn back.”
“So they are! We must watch them. There, now they’ve decided to go on, after all! Aren’t they queer?”
“Hollo! Hollo! Come back, yez bad childher! Come back, I say!”
“Yes, Michael, in a minute,” rang out Dolly’s sweet, bird-like voice.
“In a minute, nothin’! Come now, roight sthraight away! Do yez hear?”
“Yes, we’re coming,” answered Dick, and together they started to wade back across the brook.
Then there were shoes and stockings to be put on, and with sopping wet feet, and no towels, this is not an easy task.
They tugged at the unwilling stockings and nearly gave up in despair, but succeeded at last in getting them on, though the seams were far from the proper straight line at the back. Shoes were not so hard to put on, but were impossible to button without a buttonhook, so had to remain unbuttoned.
Meantime, Michael was fairly fuming with angry impatience. He could not leave his horses, or he would have gone after the truants, and no passers-by came along whom he could ask to hold his restive team.
So he continued to shout, and Dick and Dolly continued to assure him that they were coming, but they didn’t come.
At last they appeared at the thicket hedge, and as the two laughing faces peeped through, Michael could scarcely recognise his young charges. Torn, soiled, dishevelled, unkempt, there was absolutely no trace of the spick and span toilets Mrs. Halkett had looked after so carefully, in spite of her aching head and tired nerves.
“Yez naughty little rascals!” cried Michael. “Whativer possessed yez to tousel yersilves up loike that! Shame to yez! What’ll yer aunties say?”
For the first time, the twins realised their disreputable appearance.
What, indeed, would their new aunties say to them? Aunt Helen would have laughed, in her pretty, merry way, and sent them trotting away to clean up, but with new and untried aunties they couldn’t be sure. Moreover, they had an idea that Aunt Rachel and Aunt Abbie were not at all like pretty, young Auntie Helen.
Rescuing her hat from the thorn bush where it hung, Dolly looked ruefully at its twisted flowers. The more she tried to pull them into shape, the worse they looked.
She put it on her head, dismayed meanwhile to find her broad hair-ribbon was gone, and her sunny curls a moist, tangled mop.
Dick was conscious of a growing feeling of wrong-doing, but there was nothing to be done but face the music.
“Get in,” he said, briefly to his sister, and they clambered into the carriage.
Michael said no more; it was not his place to reprimand the children of the house, but he sat up very straight and stiff, as he drove rapidly toward home. To be sure, his straightness and stiffness was to conceal a fit of merriment caused by the thought of presenting these ragamuffins at the portals of Dana Dene, but the ragamuffins themselves didn’t know that, and regretful and chagrined, they sat hand in hand, awaiting their fate.
CHAPTER II
THE ARRIVAL
In the dark and somewhat sombre library at Dana Dene, Miss Rachel and Miss Abbie sat awaiting their guests. The room might have been called gloomy, but for the sunshine that edged in through the long, narrow, slit-like windows, and made determined golden bars across the dark-red carpet. Both the Misses Dana showed clearly their anxiety to have the children arrive and end their suspense.
“If only they’re tidy children,” said Miss Rachel for the fiftieth time; and Miss Abbie responded, as she always did, “Yes, and quiet-mannered.”
Miss Rachel Dana was of rather spare build, and sharp features. Her brown hair, only slightly tinged with grey, was deftly arranged, and every curled lock in its right place. Her pretty house-dress of dark blue foulard silk, with white figures, was modishly made and carefully fitted.
Miss Abbie was a little more plump, and her gown was of a shade lighter blue, though otherwise much like her sister’s.
The ladies had a patient air, as if they had waited long, but though they now and then glanced at the clock, they expressed no surprise at the delayed arrival. Trains were apt to be late at Heatherton, and they knew Michael would return as soon as possible. They had not gone themselves to the station to meet the twins, for it had seemed to them more dignified and fitting to receive their young relatives in their own home. Meantime, the young relatives were drawing nearer, and now, quite forgetting their own untidy appearance, their thoughts had turned to the waiting aunts, and the welcome they would probably receive.
“I don’t believe they’ll be as nice as Aunty Helen,” said Dick, candidly, “but I hope they’ll be jolly and gay.”
“I hope they’ll like us,” said Dolly, a little wistfully.