g of a motor car.

"There he is!" cried Jane excitedly. "Let's both run down to the gate to
see him."

"Jane!" Esther's cheeks were the colour of her ripest berry. "Jane, come
here! I forbid you--Jane!"

"He's stopping anyway. He'll be coming in. You had better take off that
apron.--Oh, look! Some one's with him. Why," with some disappointment,
"it's mother! He is letting her out. I don't believe he is coming in at
all--let go! Esther, you pig, let me go!"

She wriggled out of her sister's firm hold but not before the motor had
started again; when she reached the gate it was out of sight.

Mrs. Coombe surveyed her daughter coldly. "You are a very ill-mannered
child," she said, and putting her aside walked slowly up the path and
around the house to where Esther sat on the back porch.

"Where are the daisies?" asked Esther, looking up from her berries.

"The daisies?" vaguely. "Good gracious! I forgot all about the daisies."

"Didn't you get any?"

"Heaps, but the fact is I didn't bring them home. I felt so tired. I
don't know how I should have managed to get home myself if Dr. Callandar
hadn't picked me up."

"Dr. Callandar?" Esther's voice was mildly questioning.

"Yes, why not?"

"I thought you had not met him."

"Neither I had--at least I hadn't met him for a good many years." Mary
gave a little excited laugh. "But that's the funny part of it--he is an
old friend."

Esther looked up with her characteristic widening of the eyes. The news
was genuinely surprising. And how agitated her mother seemed!

"It is really quite a remarkable coincidence," went on Mary nervously.
"I was so surprised, startled indeed. Although it's pleasant, of course,
to meet an old schoolmate."

"You and Doctor Callandar schoolmates?" The eyes were very wide now.

Mary grew more and more confused.

"Yes--that is, not exactly. I mean his name wasn't Callandar then. His
name was Chedridge. Did you never hear me speak of Harry Chedridge?"

"Never."

"Well, you never listen to half I say. And how was I to know that Doctor
Callandar was the Harry Chedridge I used to know? He took the name of
Callandar from an uncle--or something. Anyway it isn't his own."

Esther hulled a particularly fine berry and carefully putting the hull
in the pan, threw the berry away.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" she said, quoting the immortal Alice. "Did
you recognise him at once?"

If it be possible for a lady of this enlightened age to simper, M