! _You!_ Exactly like you, Philip, to come strolling in from the
antipodes--dear fellow!" recovering from the fraternal embrace and
holding both lapels of his coat in her gloved hands. "Six years!" she
said again and again, tenderly reproachful; "Alexandrine was a baby of
six--Drina, child, do you remember my brother--do you remember your
Uncle Philip? She doesn't remember; you can't expect her to recollect;
she is only twelve, Phil--"

"I remember _one_ thing," observed Drina serenely.

Brother and sister turned toward her in pride and delight; and the child
went on: "My Aunt Alixe; I remember her. She was _so_ pretty," concluded
Drina, nodding thoughtfully in the effort to remember more; "Uncle
Philip, where is she now?"

But her uncle seemed to have lost his voice as well as his colour, and
Mrs. Gerard's gloved fingers tightened on the lapels of his coat.

"Drina--child--" she faltered; but Drina, immersed in reflection, smiled
dreamily; "So pretty," she murmured; "I remember my Aunt Alixe--"

"Drina!" repeated her mother sharply, "go and find Bridget this minute!"

Selwyn's hesitating hand sought his moustache; he lifted his eyes--the
steady gray eyes, slightly bloodshot--to his sister's distressed face.

"I never dreamed--" she began--"the child has never spoken of--of her
from that time to this! I never dreamed she could remember--"

"I don't understand what you are talking about, mother," said Drina; but
her pretty mother caught her by the shoulders, striving to speak
lightly; "Where in the world is Bridget, child? Where is Katie? And what
is all this I hear from Dawson? It can't be possible that you have been
fox-hunting all over the house again! Your nurses know perfectly well
that you are not to hunt anywhere except in your own nursery."

"I know it," said Drina, "but Kit-Ki got out and ran downstairs. We had
to follow her, you know, until she went to earth."

Selwyn quietly bent over toward Billy: "'Ware wire, my friend," he said
under his breath; "_you'd_ better cut upstairs and unlock that
schoolroom."

And while Mrs. Gerard turned her attention to the cluster of clamouring
younger children, the boy vanished only to reappear a moment later,
retreating before the vengeful exclamations of the lately imprisoned
nurses who pursued him, caps and aprons flying, bewailing aloud their
ignominious incarceration.

"Billy!" exclaimed his mother, "_did_ you do that? Bridget, Master
William is to take suppe