Coke was silent for some moments, then, with a smile, she said:
'Now we have talked enough. Go and have your play, my dears.'

'I like what you said, Aunt Betty,' said Alan, as they all got up, and
prepared to set off on their games; 'and I, for one, mean to try to
follow Dick's example, and be as good as he is.'

* * * * *

The story of Dick's misfortune had greatly excited the sympathy of the
children. Alan and the two girls allowed Peet's caustic remarks to pass
without reply. They even tried to avoid annoying him by a too free use
of the lawns and shrubberies. Georgie, whose youthful fancy had soared
to greater heights of pity and sympathy, had at once glorified Peet into
a hero, and, to the wonder of the gardener, would stand staring at him
with respectful admiration. One day, unfortunately, his feelings
carried him so far as to make him offer to help his former enemy in some
work in the hothouses, over which Peet appeared to be very busy.

'There's no way for you to help me,' was the gardener's surly answer,
'except by taking yourself off, Master Georgie. Children ought not to be
about when there's serious work going on.'

Peet's hero-stage passed away on the spot. Georgie was deeply hurt, and
came to the decision that Aunt Betty had been taken in. Peet was not at
all the person she thought him. He was nothing but a very disagreeable,
rude old man, and he wished that his aunt would 'send him away.'

Nevertheless, Peet _had_ improved. It was not all imagination on the
part of the children. Lady Coke had sent for him after her talk with the
young people, and the result of the interview was good for all parties.
Peet's chief reason for soreness, as regarded the three children from
Begbie Hall, was that they made as much use of the grounds of the Moat
House as they did of the gardens of Begbie Hall. Estelle's arrival
appeared to him to make the state of things worse, since she was the
excuse for the whole party to tear about _his_ neatly kept lawns, and
climb _his_ trees, instead of confining themselves to those of Begbie
Hall, and worrying their own gardeners. He had not dared to express as
much as this to Lady Coke, but she was too quick not to discover the
true cause of his discontent, though she only alluded to it by saying
she desired all the children should play together, whether in her
grounds or elsewhere. Kind as she was, Peet understood that he had a
mistress who must be