w
thankful I am you have come!"

She had risen from her seat and rushed forward to greet the stranger,
but suddenly she grew strangely pale, and seemed on the point of
falling. Elsa flew towards her on the one side, and the old gentleman on
the other.

"Poor dear!" he exclaimed. "I have startled her, I'm afraid. Hoot-toot,
hoot-toot, silly old man that I am. Where's that ill-tempered fellow off
to?" he went on, glancing round. "Can't he fetch a glass of water, or
make himself useful in some way?"

"I will," said Frances, darting forward. Geoffrey had disappeared, and
small wonder.

"I am quite right now, thank you," said Mrs. Tudor, trying to smile,
when Elsa had got her on to the sofa. "Don't be frightened, Elsa dear.
Nor you, uncle; it was just the--the start. I've had a good deal to make
me anxious lately, you know."

"I should think I did--those idiots of lawyers!" muttered the old man.

"And poor Geoff," she went on; "I am afraid I have not paid much
attention to him lately, and he's felt it--foolishly, perhaps."

"Rubbish!" said Uncle Hoot-Toot under his breath. "Strikes me he's used
to a good deal too much attention," he added as an aside to Elsa, with a
quick look of inquiry in his bright keen eyes.

Elsa could hardly help smiling, but for her mother's sake she restrained
herself.

"It will be all right now you have come home, dear uncle," Mrs. Tudor
went on gently. "How was it? Had you started before you got my letters?
Why did you not let us know?"

"I was on the point of writing to announce my departure," said the old
gentleman, "when your letter came. It struck me then that I could get
home nearly as quickly as a letter, and so I thought it was no use
writing."

"Then you know--you know all about this bad news?" said Mrs. Tudor
falteringly.

[Illustration: THE ARRIVAL OF GREAT-UNCLE HOOT-TOOT.]

"Yes; those fellows wrote to me. _That_ was right enough; but what they
meant by worrying you about it, my dear, I can't conceive. It was quite
against all my orders. What did poor Frank make me your trustee for, if
it wasn't to manage these things for you?"

"Then you think, you hope, there may be something left to manage, do
you?" asked Mrs. Tudor, eagerly. "I have been anticipating the very
worst. I did not quite like to put it in words to these poor
children"--and she looked up affectionately at the two girls; "but I
have really been trying to make up my mind to our being quite ruined."

"Hoo