fireworks for our Russian before long."

And so there were.

It wasn't ten days after the interview in the waiting room that the
three children were sitting on the top of the biggest rock in the field
below their house watching the 5.15 steam away from the station along
the bottom of the valley. They saw, too, the few people who had got out
at the station straggling up the road towards the village--and they saw
one person leave the road and open the gate that led across the fields
to Three Chimneys and to nowhere else.

"Who on earth!" said Peter, scrambling down.

"Let's go and see," said Phyllis.

So they did. And when they got near enough to see who the person was,
they saw it was their old gentleman himself, his brass buttons winking
in the afternoon sunshine, and his white waistcoat looking whiter than
ever against the green of the field.

"Hullo!" shouted the children, waving their hands.

"Hullo!" shouted the old gentleman, waving his hat.

Then the three started to run--and when they got to him they hardly had
breath left to say:--

"How do you do?"

"Good news," said he. "I've found your Russian friend's wife and
child--and I couldn't resist the temptation of giving myself the
pleasure of telling him."

But as he looked at Bobbie's face he felt that he COULD resist that
temptation.

"Here," he said to her, "you run on and tell him. The other two will
show me the way."

Bobbie ran. But when she had breathlessly panted out the news to the
Russian and Mother sitting in the quiet garden--when Mother's face had
lighted up so beautifully, and she had said half a dozen quick French
words to the Exile--Bobbie wished that she had NOT carried the news. For
the Russian sprang up with a cry that made Bobbie's heart leap and then
tremble--a cry of love and longing such as she had never heard. Then he
took Mother's hand and kissed it gently and reverently--and then he sank
down in his chair and covered his face with his hands and sobbed. Bobbie
crept away. She did not want to see the others just then.

But she was as gay as anybody when the endless French talking was over,
when Peter had torn down to the village for buns and cakes, and the
girls had got tea ready and taken it out into the garden.

The old gentleman was most merry and delightful. He seemed to be able
to talk in French and English almost at the same moment, and Mother did
nearly as well. It was a delightful time. Mother seemed as if she coul