Leigh, you find the girls are not much better. You ought to
be glad to get rid of our noisy pack of youngsters for an hour or two.'

'Oh, if you are not afraid,' began Miss Leigh, in an injured tone.

She considered that her anxiety on behalf of her pupils was not being
properly appreciated, and felt hurt. But further conversation was cut
short by the boisterous rush of four children round the corner of the
shubbery.

'Thomas can come!' shouted the eldest boy, who was racing ahead of the
noisy party. 'I just managed to catch him as he was sneaking off up the
Wilderness.'

'What?' exclaimed the Colonel, surprised.

'Sneaking off!' repeated Lady Coke. 'Alan, what a way of speaking! What
do you mean?'

'He ran away as soon as he saw we wanted him,' said Georgie. 'He tried
to hide in the bushes, and I am sure he did not want us to see him.'

'He _was_ sneaking off. We could all tell that,' added Marjorie, a tall,
handsome girl of thirteen. 'But what does it matter? If he can come with
us now, it is no business of ours what he was doing.'

Meanwhile, Estelle, a small, slender child of eleven, who looked much
younger, was clinging to her great-aunt's hand, and murmuring
continually, 'Are we going, Auntie? I do so want to go on the sea!'

'Here is Thomas,' said Colonel De Bohun, as the young gardener came
towards the group, with a sulky expression on his red face.

'I want you to take the children out in the boat, Thomas,' said Lady
Coke. 'I hope you are not particularly busy this afternoon?'

'I am at your service, my lady,' he replied. 'I will get---- '

'I will help you!' cried Alan, eagerly. 'We will have the boat ready in
a jiffy.'

With an awkward touch of his cap, Thomas moved off, his sulky face
revealing the wrath which was surging within. But no one was looking at
him, nor was a second thought given to Alan's laughing assertion that he
had been seen 'sneaking off up the Wilderness.' The wild joy of the
children, and the many cautions as to their behaviour when on the water,
which their elders impressed upon them, together with the preparations
for the trip, made them all forget Thomas's queer manner. They were
destined, however, before long, to remember it for many a day.

Colonel De Bohun made Alan fetch some cushions, that the boat might be
made more comfortable for his cousin and his sister, and Lady Coke,
drawing Marjorie aside, begged her to look well after Estelle, who was
not so used to boating