smiled again.

CHAPTER IX.

"EAST OR WEST, HAME IS BEST"

"But home is home wherever it is,
When we're all together and nothing amiss."
_Irish Ballad._

By this time, of course, it was quite dark. It had been quite light when
auntie and Mademoiselle Lucie set off, but at Santino the darkness comes
on very quickly. Poor Baby, he _would_ have been in trouble if auntie
had not come to look, for him--- that is to say if the old man and the
young woman had allowed him to set off on his journey home alone. I
don't think he would ever have got there, for in the dark he could not
have found his way, and he certainly could never have got the shiny jugs
and Minet and the money-box all home in safety!

The ladies and gentlemen who were coming to dine at the Villa had all
arrived. Mother was sitting in the drawing-room talking to them, and
trying her best to look as if there was nothing the matter, to prevent
grandfather finding out that there was. Poor mother, it was not very
easy for her, was it? Grandfather was a good deal put out, as it was, at
auntie's being so late. He, too, tried not to look cross, poor old
gentleman, but any one who knew him at all well could not help seeing as
he moved about the room, sometimes giving a poke to the wood fire which
was burning quite brightly as it was, sometimes sharply pulling open one
of the window-shutters and looking out, as if he could see anything with
the light inside and the dark out of doors!--any one could see that he
_was_ very much put out. He sat down now and then for a minute or two
and spoke very politely--for grandfather was a _very_ polite old
gentleman--to one or other of the stranger ladies, but even to them he
could not help showing what was in his mind.

"It is very strange, really most exceedingly strange, of my eldest
daughter," he said, "not to be in before this. I really feel quite
ashamed of it, my dear Madam."

"But you are not uneasy, I hope," said the lady, kindly. "There cannot
be anything the matter with Miss Leonard?" ("Miss Leonard" was what
Fritz called auntie's "stuck-up name," and "Lady Aylmer" was mother's.)
"You don't feel uneasy about her?"

(This lady did not know there _was_ anything the matter, for she was
quite at the other end of the room from mother. Mother had whispered to
the lady beside her, who was an old and dear friend, how frightened she
was about Herr Baby, and the old lady,