‘I do wish Aunt Grace had let me have that extra piece of bread and jam!’ said Micky. ‘I’m sure I could have made room for it all right. Do you think Diamond Jubilee will need quite all our supper, Emmeline?’

‘I’m sure he will,’ said Emmeline, indignantly. ‘You’re a very selfish boy, Micky, to grudge poor Diamond Jubilee anything you can give him. How would you like to have only three biscuits and three cups of milk for tea and supper and breakfast put together? I count what he had in the shop as dinner.’

Micky hung his head for a moment, then his face suddenly grew bright with a pleasant idea. ‘I know!’ he cried. ‘We’ll pour some of the milk into my tooth-glass, and it can be saved for Diamond Jubilee’s breakfast. We can hide the tooth-glass somewhere for the night. I wouldn’t mind not brushing my teeth, not just for once,’ he added hastily, as Emmeline’s face began to assume its most elder-sisterly expression.

‘It would be for twice, to-night and to-morrow morning,’ said Emmeline, severely. ‘I’m sometimes afraid you’ll grow up into a disgusting person, Micky, for you’re always trying to get out of brushing your teeth!’

Micky muttered something about not caring if he did grow up into a disgusting person, which Emmeline thought it more dignified not to hear. ‘Well, get on with your copies,’ she ordered, ‘else we shan’t have done in time for Aunt Grace to read to us.’

Silence settled down on the schoolroom—silence which was broken suddenly by Kitty’s voice, raised in its shrill, questioning key.

‘Are we guileless children?’ she asked, abruptly.

‘Sh—sh!’ said Emmeline, frowning. Her sum was just at its most critical stage. It cancelled out to one-third, and with a sigh of relief Emmeline gave her mind to Kitty’s question. ‘What made you think of it, Kitty?’ she asked.

‘Because of what Mary said this morning about the wonderful things guileless children can do. Is that why we are adopting Diamond Jubilee?’

‘We are adopting Diamond Jubilee so as to save him from becoming a thief and burglar,’ said Emmeline. ‘We are going to train him into a good, noble man. I wonder if you two understand what a great, beautiful work it is we have begun to-day!’ Emmeline’s eyes shone with enthusiasm.

Micky and Kitty looked greatly impressed and elated. ‘Poor Diamond Jubilee!’ said Kitty, softly. ‘I’m so glad we can give him our supper.’

‘And I don’t mind much,’ said Micky, ‘and I’ll train him first-rate—just you see if I don’t!’

CHAPTER VIII
DIAMOND JUBILEE’S SUPPER

A tray on which were three glasses of cold milk and three biscuits was always placed on the schoolroom table punctually at eight o’clock, the twins’ bedtime. Emmeline, who was allowed to sit up till a quarter to nine, usually let her supper wait on the table till then; to-night, however, she chose to retire with the younger ones.

‘She must be tired with the Fair and all the excitement,’ thought Aunt Grace, little suspecting all the plotting and planning that was going on at that moment in the schoolroom.

‘The question is, how we are to get the milk out to him without either Aunt Grace or the servants hearing us,’ Emmeline was saying. ‘If we go out at the side-door they’ll hear in the kitchen, and if we go out at the front-door Aunt Grace will hear in the drawing-room. I think on the whole the side-door will be the safest, though, for Aunt Grace has such awfully quick ears. But either way it’s very risky.’

‘I know what!’ exclaimed Micky. ‘Do you remember that American chap who was in a French prison, and who kept his gaolers so amused with his stories that the other people escaped while they weren’t looking? Well, that’s what Kitty and I will do. We’ll go to the kitchen and tell Jane and Cook all the funniest stories we can think of, and while they are laughing, Emmeline, you can creep out on tiptoe with Diamond Jubilee’s supper.

Emmeline felt a little doubtful as to whether Micky’s stories would prove quite as absorbing as the ‘American chap’s’ had done, but she could not think of a better plan. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘you go down to the kitchen now, and I’ll bring down the supper in a minute or two, when you’ve had time to get them interested.’

‘Now, Master Micky, it’s quite time you were going to bed.’ Emmeline heard Jane’s voice saying, as she crept past the kitchen-door two minutes later. ‘We’re having our supper, and we don’t want you and Miss Kitty bothering here now.’

‘But Jane, he’s going to tell you such a funny story!’ pleaded Kitty.

‘It’s high time he was dreaming funny dreams instead of telling funny stories,’ said Jane severely. ‘Go to bed now, Master Micky, there’s a good boy.’

‘You’ll have to turn me out of the room then, said Micky—a remark which was promptly followed by sounds of a rush and scramble. Emmeline knew that Micky was being chased round and round the kitchen-table—a process which involved far more noise than any amount of funny stories. Decidedly Micky was a person of resource.

Emmeline put down her tray cautiously and stretched out her hand to the door-handle. Horrors! The wretched door would not open, however much she turned the handle. It was locked, and bolted top and bottom!

Emmeline was in despair. She would have to fetch a chair in order to reach the top bolt, and it was hopeless to think of doing this, unlocking and unbolting the door, running out to Diamond Jubilee and making him gulp down the milk, coming back with the tray and the empty glasses, rebolting and relocking the door, and taking away the chair, all in the space of time that Micky was being chased round the kitchen-table! No, clearly there was nothing for it but just to go upstairs again.

It was lucky that she decided as she did, for she and her tray had barely disappeared up the back stairs when the kitchen-door was flung open and a very red-faced Micky was pushed out into the passage.

‘I’ll tell your aunt of you if you don’t go upstairs this minute!’ Jane’s parting shot made the little boy retreat.

‘Why, Emmeline, you have been quick!’ he exclaimed, when he came back into the schoolroom and found her there. ‘Oh, I see’—in a disappointed voice, as he caught sight of the glasses still full of milk—‘you haven’t even started.’

‘Yes, I have,’ and she ruefully explained what had happened. ‘I can’t think what made Jane take it into her head to lock up so early just this one evening,’ she concluded. ‘She hardly ever does it before they go to bed.’

‘She has put the shutters up in the dining-room, too,’ remarked Micky. ‘I went in there just now because I thought we might manage to open the dining-room window and get the things out that way.’

‘I don’t think we could have opened that window anyhow; it’s so very stiff and heavy,’ said Emmeline; ‘and, of course, if the shutters are up it’s no good thinking of it. Really, Jane is very tiresome.’

‘She’s the annoyingest person I know,’ declared Kitty in an aggrieved voice. ‘Micky was telling her the loveliest story, and she wouldn’t listen—not one little bit. It was awfully stupid of her—wasn’t it, Emmeline?—besides being so unpolite.’

Emmeline was too much worried over the question of Diamond Jubilee’s supper to give much thought to Jane’s lack of manners.

‘What are we to do?’ she asked in despair. ‘It’s not only that he’ll be so hungry, but it’ll be breaking a promise if we don’t take him some supper.’

‘I’ll jump out of this window, and then you can throw out the glasses for me to catch, like the man at the circus,’ suggested Micky.

‘I dare say! And the glasses would all get broken and the milk spilt,’ said Emmeline, dismissing the idea with scorn. ‘But we might throw the biscuits out like that. That’s what we’ll have to do, I suppose, though it’s a great pity, as we can’t save the milk for his breakfast.’

‘I’ve thought of a plan!’ cried Kitty suddenly; and off she rushed, returning a moment later with an empty hot-water can.

‘Whatever is the use of that?’ asked Emmeline, quite puzzled.

‘It’ll be the lift for the glasses to go down in,’ explained Kitty, who was busy untying her sash. ‘My sash will be like the rope to let it down with.’

The story games at which they were constantly playing had made them all very clever at putting things to other uses than those for which they were naturally intended, so both Micky and Emmeline understood directly what Kitty meant.

‘It’s a splendid idea!’ said Emmeline warmly.

Kitty flushed with pleasure as she bent down, and began tying one end of her sash in a knot round the spout of the hot-water can.

‘You’d better let me do that,’ said Micky eagerly; ‘girls always make grannies.’ Sailor knots were a new and carefully acquired accomplishment to Micky himself, so it was with much satisfaction that he undid Kitty’s rather feeble attempt, and bound her sash with two beautiful knots, one on the spout and the other on the handle of the hot-water can. ‘There! That’ll do champion!’ he pronounced as he finished.

The next business was to put two of the glasses and one of the biscuits into the hot-water can. It had struck Emmeline while Micky was tying his knots that they could, after all, save the contents of the third glass for to-morrow morning’s breakfast, since she and Kitty could use the same tooth-glass just for once. That being so, one of the biscuits might well be spared for to-night’s supper.

As soon as the water-can lift was ready packed, Micky clambered up on to the schoolroom window-sill and jumped out, landing right on the top of Mr. Brown’s favourite double chrysanthemum. The poor plant did not like it at all, but nobody paid any attention to it. Conspirators cannot be expected to trouble about such trifles as chrysanthemums, even if they are intended for flower-shows.

Afterwards the can was slowly and carefully lowered by Emmeline. Micky lifted up the lid as soon as he had it safely in his hands, and all three children were delighted when it turned out that neither of the glasses had been upset during their descent, and only a little of the milk spilt.

‘I shall jump out, too, and help Micky take Diamond Jubilee his supper,’ announced Kitty, suddenly; and she was just preparing to do so when Emmeline caught hold of her sleeve to stop her, thereby letting drop the sash, which was her only connecting-link with the can.

‘There now!’ she cried angrily. ‘See what you’ve made me do by being so silly! It’ll all be found out now, for I don’t know however we are to get the can up again.’

‘I’m so dreadfully sorry, Emmeline,’ said poor Kitty in a piteous voice.

She felt, as she told Micky afterwards, ‘a mixture of a donkey and a traitor,’ and that is not a cheery feeling.

Micky set the can down on the ground and rubbed his head thoughtfully. He always did this when he was perplexed, not because it helped him, but because he had an impression that it was the correct thing to do. Suddenly he bounded like an excited indiarubber ball.

‘I’ve got it!’ he cried. ‘What donkeys we are! All I’ll have to do is to untie the knots, and roll the sash into a little ball to throw up to you; then you’ll have to let the two ends down, and I’ll tie the knots again, and you’ll be able to draw up the can as easy as easy. Do you see?’

‘Oh yes!’ said Emmeline in a tone of great relief; ‘you are a good boy, Micky, to have thought of that. But make haste now and take Diamond Jubilee his supper; someone may come in any moment. I’m sorry I was cross, Kitty,’ she added, as Micky flitted across the lawn at a speed which was risky considering that he was carrying two tumblers of milk, and disappeared among the dark bushes round the summer-house, ‘but it was silly of you to think of jumping down. However would you have got back again? You couldn’t have swarmed up the water-pipe.’

‘I would have been able to if you hadn’t stopped me practising the other day,’ said Kitty, rather resentfully. It was her one grievance that she was not always allowed to follow Micky in his gymnastic feats. ‘When I’m grown up,’ she added, ‘I mean to have six daughters, and all the lessons they shall do will be learning to swarm up water-pipes!’

‘Hark! I do believe that’s someone coming!’ said Emmeline, looking frightened.

Footsteps were certainly mounting the back-stairs. Nearer and nearer they came, and Emmeline’s heart began to thump so hard that she could almost hear it. What if it should be Aunt Grace herself?

The footsteps passed by the schoolroom door without pausing, and Emmeline gave a gasp of relief. If only Micky would make haste and come back before someone really did come in!

‘You’d better go and undress, Kitty,’ she said nervously. I must wait here to take in the can, but there’s no need for you to stay, and if Aunt Grace or Jane come in and find you still here they will want to know why.’

It is hard to be ordered off to bed when one is in the middle of such an exciting thing as a plot, and poor Kitty looked so much disappointed that Emmeline had to comfort her by telling her to fetch her own tooth-glass to be filled with milk and hidden for the night in the schoolroom cupboard. That cheered her up again, and she went off to bed contentedly enough afterwards.

Before she had been gone more than a minute Micky and his empty tumblers returned.

‘Diamond Jubilee’s a greedy pig,’ he said, as he began fumbling with the knots.

‘People shouldn’t talk like that of their adopted children,’ said Emmeline, ‘and do, do make haste!’

‘Well, but he is,’ persisted Micky; ‘and I say, Emmeline, I can’t undo these knots.’

‘Oh, Micky, you must be able to undo your own knots!’ exclaimed Emmeline, almost in tears.

‘Well, I can’t, then,’ said Micky, after a few more desperate tugs, ‘and what’s more, it’s getting so dark I can hardly see.’

‘What is to be done?’ cried poor Emmeline.

‘P’r’aps you could catch hold of the sash if I toss up the middle,’ suggested Micky. They tried, but of course in vain. ‘Well, I’ll just have to wind it round my neck and swarm up with it,’ said Micky, and Emmeline saw that there was nothing else for it, though she felt very uneasy as to the fate of the tumblers.

Her fears were only too well justified. Micky found swarming up the water-pipe a far more difficult feat in the twilight, and with a heavy can almost throttling him, than it had been in broad daylight without a can. Several times he tried, and only slipped back panting to the ground.

‘I can’t do it with that beastly can,’ he declared at last. ‘I’ll have to leave it behind a bush just for to-night.’

‘But, Micky, Jane will come in and wonder where the glasses are,’ said Emmeline in despair, ‘and then it will all be found out. Oh dear! what shall we do?’

‘Oh, I’ll put the glasses in my trouser pockets,’ said Micky cheerfully; ‘I think there’ll be room if I turn out all the string and stuff.’

It took a minute or two for Micky to turn out all the ‘string and stuff’—under which designation he included such various articles as a broken pocket-knife, a half-eaten apple, odds and ends of sealing-wax, a piece of very messy toffee, marbles, old postage stamps, and crumbs of yet older biscuits—and a minute or two more to hide this and the can under a bush, and when at last he and the glasses had begun their journey up the water-pipe, it was not as prosperous as might have been wished. It is true that Micky, red, panting, and very dirty, did finally reach the schoolroom window-sill in safety, but this was not until after various adventures, in the course of which one of the tumblers was smashed to pieces, and the other rather badly cracked.

‘Oh dear, I wish we had never tried to get the milk out to Diamond Jubilee!’ sighed Emmeline, ‘if we had just taken him the biscuits it would have been keeping my promise, but I did so want to make a good impression this first evening!’

‘You haven’t made it, anyhow,’ said Micky, ‘he said he was still hungry even after he’d drunk the two glasses of milk!’

‘You’re sure you took him the two glasses?’ asked Emmeline, with sudden suspicion. ‘You didn’t drink some of it on the way, did you, Micky?’

‘Of course I didn’t,’ said Micky; ‘gentlemen never drink their guest’s—I mean their adopted children’s—milk, and, besides, I don’t like milk much. But I’m going to have a biscuit, anyhow.’

‘But, Micky, it’s just as bad for a gentleman to eat his adopted child’s biscuit as to drink his milk,’ said Emmeline.

‘No, it’s not; not when the gentleman’s been swarming up water-pipes till he’s as hungry as hungry,’ said Micky. ‘I tell you what, Emmeline, if you’ll let me have the other two biscuits, I’ll go and tell Aunt Grace I’m very sorry I’ve had an accident and broken two of the glasses. Then there won’t be any questions asked. Aunt Grace is much too jolly to bother you with questions when you go and tell of yourself.’

‘It doesn’t seem quite truthful, somehow,’ said Emmeline. ‘She’ll think you’ve been dropping the glasses on the floor or something like that.’

‘Well, I shan’t say so,’ said Micky stoutly, ‘and I did have an accident—several accidents.’

‘I suppose it’s all right,’ said Emmeline, still rather doubtfully; ‘and if you must have the biscuits, you must, but it’s rather horrid of you, Micky.’

‘No, it’s not horrid, it’s only hungry of me,’ said Micky, calmly helping himself to a biscuit; ‘you must remember I’ve got a long night before me.’

Micky did not have to go downstairs to make his confession to Aunt Grace, for she appeared in the schoolroom while he was in the middle of his second biscuit.

‘Why, Micky, you seem to be having a very lengthy supper to-night,’ she remarked, in her brisk, pleasant voice. ‘Do you know half-past eight has struck? And what has been happening to the glasses?’ she added, coming to the table and examining them.

‘I’ve had—several accidents,’ stammered Micky, turning red.

‘So it seems,’ said Aunt Grace rather dryly. ‘Is it the accidents which have taken you so long?’

‘Partly,’ said Micky, turning still redder, and looking so very uncomfortable that kind Aunt Grace took pity on him.

‘Well, we won’t say any more about it this once,’ she promised good-naturedly; ‘luckily, the glasses are only the common sort. But I’m afraid the next that gets broken you’ll have to pay for out of your pocket-money unless there’s some extra good reason for the accident. Do you see, old man? And now make haste and go to bed, for it’s shockingly late.’

‘Aunt Grace,’ cried Micky, flinging himself upon her and giving her one of his bear’s hugs, ‘you’re a—a ripper!’—a compliment which gratified Aunt Grace as much as any she had ever received.

Emmeline watched them with her curious aloofness. ‘Pretty people like Aunt Grace can get round everybody,’ she was thinking bitterly. ‘Even the twins are beginning to love her more than me!’

‘Good-night, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace, looking at her niece rather wistfully. She would have given a great deal for Emmeline to have hugged her as Micky had just done.

‘Good-night,’ said Emmeline, in a voice which sounded sulky, but was really unhappy, for jealousy is the most miserable feeling that anyone can have, except perhaps sea-sickness.

When Emmeline went to her room she found Kitty already in bed. Her eyes were shining with excitement. ‘Has Micky got back safe, and did Diamond Jubilee like his supper?’ she asked eagerly.

‘I don’t know—I don’t think he said,’ answered Emmeline, absently.

‘Do you know,’ continued Kitty, ‘I feel as if I’d had ten birthdays all in a lump to-day, and was a big grown-up woman of eighteen; for adopting somebody is an awfully grown-up thing to do, isn’t it, Emmeline?’

‘Yes,’ assented Emmeline, with a brightening face.

There was one person, at all events, who could never forsake her for Aunt Grace; Diamond Jubilee, at least, would never forget the one who had rescued him from a life of sin and misery. Under her gentle guidance he would grow into a very, very good man—perhaps even a clergyman or a missionary. Some day he would address a meeting like the one the other night, only much larger, and he would tell the story of his own life. ‘But for that child who rescued me when I was a ragged little boy, being brought up as a pickpocket, I might ere this have ended my life on the gallows,’ he would say, in a voice which would tremble with emotion. Emmeline could not quite make up her mind whether she herself would be present at this interesting meeting, or whether she would by that time be lying in a quiet grave, covered with the wreaths of white lilies which Diamond Jubilee would order, regardless of expense. On the whole she inclined to the latter alternative.

That night, as Aunt Grace brushed her hair, she was thinking of the twins, and what dear, merry little souls they were. ‘And Emmeline’s a splendid little person, too,’ she told herself loyally; she was always afraid of making a distinction, even in thought, between her love for the twins and her love for Emmeline. ‘How few children of her age could be safely trusted to take a younger brother and sister to a fair! It was odd of Mary to let them go, but I suppose it was out of her great good-nature and fear of disappointing them, and, after all, I suppose in her own circle it would seem quite a suitable arrangement that a little elder sister should take the younger ones. Well, anyhow, no harm has come of it.’

Perhaps Aunt Grace would have been less sure that no harm had come of it if she could have guessed that at that very moment Micky had jumped out of the schoolroom window, preparatory to spending the night with the disreputable little ragamuffin whom Emmeline had picked up at the fair.

‘Are you all right, Micky?’ Emmeline was asking anxiously. ‘Are you ready to have the blankets thrown out?’

The idea of taking the blankets from the unused spare-room bed had been a really brilliant inspiration.

‘Right as a trivet,’ said Micky, in a voice which, though cheery, was prudently subdued; ‘the bed’s so jolly soft. Yes, throw them out now. Well, if this isn’t the greatest lark!’

The moon was very bright, so that Emmeline and Kitty were able to watch the tangle of blankets and boy tottering across the lawn. Then it disappeared among the dark bushes, and the two girls crept back to their beds as quietly as they had left them.

CHAPTER IX
BAD NEWS

Emmeline awoke next morning with the cares of the mother of a family weighing on her mind. Yesterday, amid the excitement of adopting Diamond Jubilee and of the various adventures which had followed, she had hardly had leisure to realise all the difficulties and anxieties the carrying out of her plan would involve; but now that the first flush of romance was beginning to fade into the light of common day, they stood out with unpleasant clearness. What if Diamond Jubilee should go on refusing to live alone in the Feudal Castle? For one evening he might be fairly safe from discovery in the summer-house; for one night Micky might go out and sleep in the wood without anyone becoming aware of his absence; but Emmeline had sense enough to see that such arrangements could not possibly be lasting. Even for once they were very risky. Suppose Micky should fail to come back before Jane went to call him?

She felt under her pillow for her little gold watch. It was a quarter to seven; in another half-hour it would be time to get up, and Jane would come to call them. What a hue and cry would be raised if Micky were missing!

A restless feeling seized her that she must get up then and there and go to see whether he was safe in his bed; so she scrambled into her dressing-gown and slippers, and hurried out of the room and down the passage and steps which led to the old part of the house. Her knees shook as she opened Micky’s door and crept in. Suppose the bed should be empty?

Joy! Micky was lying there, so sound asleep that she could almost have believed the adventures of the night before only a dream, had it not been for the mud on his house-shoes, which were lying in the middle of the floor mixed up with a heap of his other clothes, all evidently left just as he had got out of them on his return.

‘It must have been raining in the night, for there was no mud yesterday evening,’ thought Emmeline, as she folded the clothes and put them neatly on a chair, under which she placed the shoes. She was a tidy child by nature, and besides, as she reflected, Jane was much less likely to notice that the shoes were muddy, if they were in the right place.

She went back to her own room feeling much easier in her mind. For that time, at all events, the danger was over, and surely the very fact that Micky was lying there so peacefully gave good hope that it would not again be necessary to run such a risk. Micky could never have gone to sleep so calmly if Diamond Jubilee had been in a great state of distress at being left alone in the Feudal Castle. So, at least, Emmeline told herself and tried to believe.

Several times, while the little girls were dressing, and while Kitty, who had all the delight of being in a plot without the anxieties of responsibility, was pouring out a constant stream of excited chatter, Emmeline looked nervously out of the window, half expecting to see Diamond Jubilee lurking somewhere about the garden. There was never any sign of him, however, and her spirits rose higher each moment. If only he were settling down to live happily in the Feudal Castle, everything would be more simple!

‘I can’t think what can have happened to Micky,’ remarked Aunt Grace, as they were beginning breakfast that morning without his having made an appearance; ‘it’s not often he oversleeps himself. I’m afraid the Fair has been too much for you young people,’ she added, in a playfully teasing voice, as Kitty gave a great yawn.

‘Oh, it’s not that,’ began Kitty, eager to defend the Fair; ‘I think it’s——’ Here she became suddenly aware of Emmeline’s frowns, and broke off with reddening cheeks. What a scolding she would have from Emmeline presently!

Fortunately for Kitty, Aunt Grace was not attending. She was reading a letter which seemed to contain bad news, for her expression grew more and more distressed. She read it over twice, as though hoping against hope that she might have made some mistake, and when she laid it down Emmeline saw that her hands were shaking.

‘I’ve just had a piece of very bad news,’ she said quietly. ‘Mary King—the very dear friend I used to live with in London—is dangerously ill—dying, I’m afraid. I shall have to go to her to-day or—— Kitty, would you mind fetching Bradshaw? It’s on the drawing-room writing-table.’

Kitty bustled off, awestruck and yet pleased with the importance of being able to help at such a crisis, if only by fetching Bradshaw.

‘Oh dear, it’s last month’s—I was forgetting,’ said Aunt Grace wearily, as Kitty came running back with it. ‘I suppose it wouldn’t be safe to trust to it—so many trains change in September.’

‘Suppose I go out and buy another?’ suggested Kitty, eagerly. To be sent out shopping in the middle of breakfast would be a delightful break in the ordinary routine of life.

‘You wouldn’t get one at any of the village shops,’ said Aunt Grace, putting her hand to her forehead. ‘Stay! the Robinsons might possibly have one.’

‘I’ll run round to the Vicarage and ask them,’ broke in Kitty, rushing off almost before Aunt Grace had time for the absent ‘Very well,’ which was all she answered.

‘I’ll just go and see that she puts on a hat,’ murmured Emmeline, more to herself than to Aunt Grace who had no ears for such things just then. The precaution proved a necessary one. Emmeline was only just in time to stop Kitty from running out at the front door hatless, gloveless, and still in her morning pinafore, a garment which had seen much active service in the course of its career.

Micky was coming downstairs by way of the banisters when Emmeline made her way back to the dining-room. ‘I say, is Aunt Grace in a wax?’ he inquired.

‘What about?’ asked Emmeline. ‘Oh, because of your being late for breakfast? No, I expect she has forgotten all about you. She’s just heard that her dearest friend is dying.’

Micky’s round, impudent face suddenly fell, and he was so much awestruck that he had got to the dining-room door before it occurred to him to make any remark.

When the two children came into the room Aunt Grace was sitting very still, gazing straight in front of her, with eyes that did not seem to be seeing anything. Without saying a word Micky went straight up to her and gave her a rough hug.

‘My own boy!’ she murmured, a little absently, but very tenderly, as she stroked his ruffled head—Micky’s toilet that morning had left much to be desired—and seemed to find a certain comfort in the touch. Emmeline suddenly felt a queer lump rising in her throat. Kitty could run messages for Aunt Grace, and Micky could comfort her; she alone could do nothing.

‘Won’t you try and eat something, Aunt Grace?’ she suggested, shyly, after a moment. ‘Let me butter some toast for you.’

‘Thank you, Emmeline,’ said Aunt Grace, gratefully; and though she had no appetite for food just then, she made a brave effort to eat the toast so as not to disappoint the child, and the little kindness given and received brought them nearer together than ever before.

‘I didn’t know Miss King was ill, even,’ Emmeline ventured, timidly. ‘It’s very sudden, isn’t it?’

‘In a sense, yes,’ said Aunt Grace sadly; ‘but she has known, and I have known for a long time past, that she had this disease, and that the end might come at any time. That was why I went on living with her in London till her sister could return from India, instead of coming at once to look after you, as I should naturally have done. She would have let me go, poor darling, for she never thought of herself. But I just couldn’t leave her alone, knowing that all this suffering and danger might come on at any time.’

It was the first time that Aunt Grace had talked to Emmeline so much as she would have done to a grown-up person, and the little girl listened with a strange mixture of feelings, among which gratification, perplexity, and self-reproach came uppermost. She had hitherto always taken for granted that Aunt Grace had stayed in London because she was absorbed in a round of gaiety, and now that the real reason appeared to have been such a very different one, she found her whole point of view shifting in a disconcerting fashion. Could it be that Aunt Grace was really a quite different kind of person from what Emmeline had always imagined her?

There was little time for considering the question, for just at that moment Alice came in with a telegram. ‘It’s just as I feared from the letter,’ said Aunt Grace, after she had torn it open with trembling fingers. ‘All the worst symptoms are confirmed. I shall have to start by the next train,’ and with that she hurried away to pack and to give a few hasty directions to the servants.

‘Can’t I help you, Aunt Grace?’ asked Emmeline, running after her.

‘Well, will you look after Micky’s breakfast, and Kitty’s too, when she comes back?’ said Aunt Grace, with a faint smile. ‘That will help me more than anything.’

Sympathy had by no means dulled the edge of Micky’s appetite, and he was still in the middle of a leisurely breakfast when Kitty burst in, followed rather more quietly by Mr. Faulkner. ‘Aunt Grace—where’s Aunt Grace?’ she demanded, breathlessly.

‘I’m going to London to-day myself, so I want your aunt to let me travel with her and help her all I can,’ explained Mr. Faulkner to Emmeline, as Kitty ran away to look for Aunt Grace.

‘Thank you; I’m sure she’ll be very glad,’ said Emmeline, in her best grown-up manner. ‘Won’t you sit down and let me pour you out a cup of tea?’

‘Thanks very much, but I’ve had breakfast already,’ said Mr. Faulkner; and just at that moment Aunt Grace herself came in, with Kitty.

Mr. Faulkner did not wait to say ‘How do you do?’ Instead, he began at once: ‘You’ll let me travel with you, won’t you?’ not at all as if he was proposing a kindness, but in the way people ask for something they want very much.

‘Thank you! I shall be very glad,’ said Aunt Grace, and for one moment she smiled—smiled more with her eyes than with her lips, even though her eyes were full of tears. Emmeline felt in a vague, wondering way that Mr. Faulkner’s suggestion had comforted Aunt Grace more than her toast, or Kitty’s eagerness in running messages, or even Micky’s hug. It was odd, she thought, for Aunt Grace did not seem a person who would mind travelling alone.

He went away again almost directly afterwards, and there followed a time of general bustle and confusion. ‘It’s a pity we can’t take Diamond Jubilee his breakfast now,’ remarked Emmeline, chancing to find herself alone with the twins. ‘It would be quite easy to get it out of the house without anyone noticing while they’re all so busy; but it’s such a long way to the Feudal Castle that I’m afraid it would be lesson-time before we could get back.’

‘Oh, but he isn’t at the Feudal Castle,’ said Micky calmly. ‘I believe he’d be in the summer-house still if I hadn’t told him he must jolly well get out if he didn’t want me to lick him. I expect he’s hanging about somewhere near the garden.’

‘Micky, you surely didn’t sleep in the summer-house?’ asked Emmeline, in a frightened voice.

Micky nodded.

‘You couldn’t expect us to lug those beastly blankets all the way to the Feudal Castle,’ he said.

‘But, Micky, it was really risky,’ said Emmeline. ‘Just supposing Mr. Brown had found you!’

‘Well, he didn’t, anyhow,’ said Micky, ‘and it wasn’t likely he would; nobody hardly ever goes there except us. It was really much safer than if we had gone to the Feudal Castle. How would I ever have known when it was time to come back, in the middle of the wood?’

There was something in this, but still Emmeline could not help feeling that it had been a risk, and a risk that Diamond Jubilee must not again be allowed to run. Then, as a fresh idea suddenly struck her, ‘What about the blankets?’ she gasped—‘you haven’t surely left them——’

‘Oh, they’re as safe as safe,’ Micky reassured her. ‘I thought of a simply lovely place to keep them—Punch’s kennel!’

‘But they’ll be seen as soon as ever Punch is unchained!’ said Emmeline, in a panic. ‘Oh, how could you be so silly?’

‘It wasn’t silly,’ said Micky. ‘I pushed them right to the back of the kennel, where it’s all dark. Nobody would ever see them unless they stooped down and looked right in, and they’d never think of doing that.’

‘Well, perhaps not,’ said Emmeline doubtfully, ‘but I’m afraid they’ll be very dirty and smelly when they come out again.’

‘Oh, they’ll only smell rather doggy,’ said Micky cheerfully.

It struck Emmeline that Jane might not take it quite so calmly as Micky, if next time she went to prepare the spare-room for a visitor she found the best blankets smelling doggy. Still, it was to be hoped that next time was still a long way off, and meantime the kennel had one advantage as a storing-place—namely, that it would be possible to take the blankets out of it without being observed. Perhaps, after all, Micky had done the best that could be done under the circumstances. Emmeline felt quite bewildered with the new and unthought of difficulties and problems which were continually cropping up. She had never realised that the secret adoption of a child would prove so complicated a business.

‘Well, I think I’ll go out with the milk and see if I can find him,’ she said aloud, after a moment’s anxious reflection. ‘Even if I don’t I can always leave it in some safe outdoor place. Don’t either of you come with me. Aunt Grace may want us to go messages, and it would be awkward if you were out as well.’

Emmeline ran up to the schoolroom, took the glass of milk out of the cupboard, and hurried downstairs with it. When she had got it safely into the garden without anyone having noticed her, she began to breathe freely again.

Alas! An unforeseen danger was following her down the garden path. She had been thinking so much of escaping with her milk, unseen by Jane, Cook, or Aunt Grace, that she had forgotten all about Mr. Brown till now, when she heard his wheel-barrow grating on the gravel behind her. It was a dismaying sound, for Mr. Brown had inconveniently keen eyes, and if he saw the milk he would certainly wonder what she was doing with it out there. What was worse, he would wonder about it to Jane and Cook, for Mr. Brown’s standard of honour in not telling tales was not as high as it might have been. So Emmeline almost ran along the path, without daring so much as to look round, and, pushing open the garden door, fled through it and into the lane so hastily that a good deal of her milk splashed out on to her dress.

‘Hello!’ called a voice, as she was trying, without much success, to rub out the stain with her pocket-handkerchief. Looking up, startled, she saw Diamond Jubilee’s disreputable little figure leaning over the railings which fenced off the wood.

‘You should say “Good-morning,” not “Hulloa,”’ said Emmeline with dignity, as soon as she had recovered from her start. ‘See, I have brought you your breakfast. Drink it quickly, for I have to get back to—to my work.’ She had been on the point of saying ‘to lessons,’ but ‘work’ sounded more dignified.

‘Why, I reckoned you was a lady,’ said Diamond Jubilee, pausing between two gulps to give her one of his critical stares.

‘Well, so I am,’ said Emmeline, perplexed and a little offended.

‘Ladies don’t do no work,’ said the boy.

‘Oh yes, they do,’ said Emmeline earnestly. ‘Everybody that’s worth anything does work. Why, even the Prince of Wales has “I serve” for his motto. That’s one of the things I’ll have to teach you, Diamond Jubilee, that you can’t be a real gentleman unless you work for other people.’

‘My father were a gentleman more often than not,’ remarked Diamond Jubilee, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

It struck Emmeline that she must certainly buy him one or two pocket-handkerchiefs. To be sure, he needed an entire new outfit, for what he had on was only fit for a bonfire, but her present means would, alas! only run to absolute necessities, such as food and pocket-handkerchiefs.

‘Well, then, you must try to follow your father’s example,’ she said aloud. She did not know that to be ‘a gentleman’ in Diamond Jubilee’s sense meant to be out of work. ‘Think how it would have grieved him if he could have seen you yesterday afternoon trying to steal my purse! You must always be a good boy, for his sake.’

Now, as a matter of fact, the late Mr. Jones had frequently varied his periods of being a gentleman with times in prison, for he had combined a strong turn for petty crime with a distinct talent for being found out, so it was no wonder that his son stared at Emmeline in vacant surprise. He was never a boy who troubled himself much to understand puzzling things, however, so he passed on to a subject of more practical importance.

‘Aren’t you going to give me nothing more to eat?’ he demanded, with a return to his professional whine. ‘That ain’t much of a breakfast, that aren’t.’

‘Do you know, Diamond Jubilee, I’m afraid you’re rather greedy?’ said Emmeline. ‘You oughtn’t to want anything more after that glassful of good milk. I’m sure it’s more than what you’ve been used to having for breakfast.’

‘Well, that aren’t, then,’ said Diamond Jubilee sulkily. ‘I’m used to a meat breakfast, I am.’

‘I’m afraid that’s a story,’ said Emmeline, gravely, ‘and it’s very wicked to tell stories, besides being silly, for you might know I shouldn’t believe anything so absurd.’

Emmeline spoke out of the wisdom she had gained from her little story-books, in which ragged street-urchins were always pictured as breakfasting on dry bread—if, indeed, they had any breakfast at all. But, as a matter of fact, Diamond Jubilee’s statement was not altogether without foundation. There had been times in Mother Grimes’ establishment when money became mysteriously plentiful, and at such times she and Diamond Jubilee and the other little boys who lived with her, had fared with reckless luxury till the last penny had been spent. To be sure, there had been other times when they had really had almost as little to eat as Emmeline imagined—indeed, they had been passing through one of those uncomfortable intervals just lately, which accounted for Diamond Jubilee’s willingness to let himself be adopted—but the memory of that and all the other disagreeables of his former life was fast losing its vividness.

‘I did used to have meat breakfasts,’ he repeated stubbornly.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Emmeline, severely. ‘But I haven’t time to talk about that just now. What I wanted to say was to tell you how vexed I am to hear that you spent last night in the summer-house. Why, just suppose Mr. Brown had found you there when he came to work this morning! There would have been a dreadful fuss, and you would have been sent back to Mother Grimes!’

‘And do you reckon I’d mind that?’ he asked, scornfully. ‘I’d a deal sooner be with her than with you, I can tell you.’

Emmeline took this for mere bravado, but she turned rather white, none the less, and it was with an effort that she recovered herself and said gently: ‘I don’t think you mean that. Anyhow, I hope you’ll try and be a brave boy to-night, and not make a fuss about sleeping in your own little house. It’s true it is rather bare just at present, but think how many poor little boys have no house at all to sleep in.’

‘Lor! how she do jaw!’ exclaimed Diamond Jubilee, with a rude laugh.

If Emmeline had been white a minute before, she turned crimson now.

‘You are a very naughty, ungrateful boy!’ she cried, as the tears rushed to her eyes, ‘and I’m not going to waste any more time bothering about you. Give me that glass, please,’ and, having snatched it out of his hands, she ran across the lane into their own garden, feeling more hurt and angry than she had ever done in her life before.

She calmed down a little after she had rushed upstairs to her own room and rinsed out the glass, and by the time she had dabbed her eyes with a wet sponge and dried them with a towel, she had almost forgiven Diamond Jubilee.

‘After all, it only shows how badly he needs someone to teach him better,’ she told herself, bravely, ‘so I must try to be patient with him, poor boy! But, oh dear, I wonder whether Kathleen ever found those children whom she was an angel to, so trying?’

CHAPTER X
OMNIBUS NUTS

‘I’m sure people’s adopted children matter much more than their stupid French exercises!’ wailed Kitty. Her own French exercise had been so very stupid that Miss Miller had sentenced her to stay in after lessons and write it over again; and now Emmeline had announced her intention of going into the village to buy Diamond Jubilee’s food-supply. It was really too hard, Kitty felt, to be kept in to-day of all days.

‘Leave the old thing,’ suggested Micky; ‘very likely she’ll forget to ask for it to-morrow as she did for my declension.’

‘I can’t—she put me on my honour,’ said Kitty, kicking the table-leg angrily.

‘Putting people on their honour is a horridly mean dodge,’ growled Micky.

‘I wonder whether, when people wanted to go lovely secret expeditions to take food to Prince Charlie, they ever had to do stupid exercises instead?’ said Kitty, giving another vicious kick to the table.

At that moment Emmeline entered, in hat and gloves. ‘I’ve taken the extra money-box money,’ she told them, breathlessly; ‘it’s two shillings and ninepence. That ought to last him nearly three weeks. About a shilling a week is all we can reckon on, I’m afraid, though it doesn’t seem much even for Omnibus Nuts. To be sure, there’s birthday money, but that won’t be yet, and even when we get it, it will be wanted for bedclothes and things. If only we could earn some more, somehow!’

‘Diamond Jubilee shall have all my egg-money,’ said Kitty eagerly. She had a little family of bantams, and was allowed to sell the eggs to the cook.

‘But there have been hardly any eggs lately,’ said Emmeline.

‘There’s only one hen now Whitey’s dead,’ said Kitty, rather injured. ‘I’m sure Specky does her best. It’s such a pity that last set of eggs Whitey hatched all turned out gentlemen. If only they had been ladies we might have had heaps of eggs.’

‘What are Omnibus Nuts, Emmeline?’ asked Micky five minutes later, as they were ‘ralking’ to the village. (‘Ralking’ was a word of their own used to describe a peculiar cross between walking and running, specially invented by Micky for occasions like coming back from Church, when running was forbidden.)

‘Oh, they’re a wonderful new food that’s just been invented, and that’s ever so much cheaper than any of the ordinary foods. A person could manage to live on them for ninepence a week, it says,’ explained Emmeline. ‘They’re called Omnibus Nuts because they contain all the things which are of use in all the other foods we eat. I read all about them in that Vegetarian Magazine which came the other day. I think Diamond Jubilee ought really to do quite well if he has nine-pennyworth of Omnibus Nuts every week, and three-pennyworth of chocolate, which everyone says is about the most nourishing thing you can eat.’

‘Well, the chocolate will be decent, anyway,’ said Micky, with conviction.

A quarter of an hour’s ‘ralking’ brought them into the village.

‘Omnibus Nuts?’ said Mrs. Freeman, the fat and rather aggressive woman who kept the shop which supplied the Woodsleigh people with the less interesting wants of life—for exciting things like Christmas dinners or new hats they usually went into Eastwich—‘no, we don’t keep them. What’s more, I never heard tell of them.’

Emmeline’s face fell. According to the advertisement, all England was munching Omnibus Nuts; it was very tiresome of Woodsleigh to be the one exception.

‘How long would it take you to order them for us?’ she asked anxiously.

‘There’s the carrier coming from Eastwich to-morrow, but you’d not get such things there, I don’t suppose, and it wouldn’t be worth our while to order them special from London, not the little quantity you’d want. I suppose it isn’t Miss Bolton who’s ordering them, by the way?’

‘No, but we shall want a very large quantity,’ said Emmeline, drawing herself up—‘nine-pennyworth every week.’

‘Yes,’ chimed in Micky, ‘we shall want a quite enormous quantity—somebody’s going to live just on Omnibus Nuts and chocolate.’

‘Well I never!’ ejaculated Mrs. Freeman, while Emmeline frowned and pressed Micky’s foot hard.

‘Well, can you order them for us?’ she asked hastily, hoping by a return to more formal business relations to avert suspicions.

‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Mrs. Freeman, eyeing her customers doubtfully. ‘You see, we should have to order them special from London.’

‘I don’t suppose you would,’ said Emmeline, impatiently; ‘you’d be almost sure to get them in Eastwich. Besides, once you’d got them in stock, everybody in the village would be buying them—they’re like meat, and milk, and vegetables all put together, it says, and they don’t cost hardly anything, and there’s no need to cook them.’

Mrs. Freeman looked stolidly incredulous, and Emmeline was fast losing what remained of her temper, when there came an unexpected interruption. A bright-looking youth suddenly poked his head out of the half-open door which divided the shop from an inner room, and joined in the conversation.

‘So you want Omnibus Nuts?’ he said. ‘Wonderful things! I know them well. Pity they’re out of stock. Still, a famous specialist has just discovered that monkey-nuts have exactly the same nutritious properties. Wouldn’t you like some of them?’

Mrs. Freeman abruptly turned her back on the children, and Emmeline, who could not see her grin, was much impressed by the young man’s long words and confident air.

‘You’re quite sure they’re as good as Omnibus Nuts?’ she asked, with only a slight touch of doubt in her voice. ‘They would really do instead of meat and vegetable and all the other things?’

‘I’ve lived on them myself for six weeks together, and felt as chirpy as could be at the end of the time,’ said the young man, gravely.

‘Well, then, I think they must be all right,’ decided Emmeline, with a sigh of relief ‘so we’ll take some, please.’

The last part of Emmeline’s sentence was addressed to Mrs. Freeman, but that lady had become suddenly and unaccountably busy with something in a dark corner of the shop, and it was the youth who came forward to serve them.

‘What quantity would you like?’ he asked, politely.

‘Well,’ began Emmeline, ‘I meant to have spent two-and-threepence on the Omnibus Nuts.’

‘You shall have our entire stock of monkey-nuts for two-and-threepence,’ said the young man, promptly. ‘It comes cheaper buying them in large quantities, you know; but, of course, we can sell you a smaller amount if you prefer.’

‘Oh, I think we’ll take them all. I know it comes cheaper in the long run,’ said Emmeline, feeling herself quite an experienced housekeeper.

She had often heard grown-up people talk of things being cheaper in the long run.

‘Shall we send them for you?’ asked the young man, as he reached down the jar containing the monkey-nuts.

‘Oh no, we’ll take them with us, please,’ said Emmeline hastily.

‘I’ll make two parcels of them then. They’d be rather a lot for one to carry. Now, is there anything else we can do for you, to-day?’ he added, as he poured out the monkey-nuts into two large, stout paper-bags.

‘I’ll have sixpennyworth of milk-chocolate please,’ said Emmeline. ‘I suppose it is more nourishing than plain chocolate?’

‘Most nourishing thing you can eat next to monkey-nuts, and, of course, Omnibus Nuts,’ said the youth cheerfully, as he served her with it.

‘George Albert, I’m ashamed of you—telling such crams!’ exclaimed Mrs. Freeman, as soon as the children had left the shop.

‘It was all in the way of business,’ said George Albert, ‘and I dare say monkey-nuts will do every bit as well as Omnibus Nuts, whatever they may be.’

Emmeline meantime gave Micky a little lecture as they walked away from the shop.

‘I do wish you would be more careful,’ she was saying. ‘You very nearly let out about Diamond Jubilee just now.’

‘I never said his name even,’ said Micky indignantly; ‘I’ve been most frightfully careful.’

‘You said quite enough to let out, if anyone had been paying much attention,’ said Emmeline, severely. ‘Luckily Mrs. Freeman seemed thoroughly stupid, but I don’t feel sure that sharp young man mayn’t have guessed something.’

Micky thought it as well to change the subject.

‘We seem to have got a great many monkey-nuts for one boy,’ he remarked, peering into his bag. ‘Don’t you think he’ll get rather tired of them before they’re done?’

‘Oh no, Micky. What silly ideas you have!’ said Emmeline impatiently. ‘You must remember that Diamond Jubilee isn’t like us. I expect he’s often been used to going days and days without the least little scrap of food; so he ought to be only too thankful to have plenty of nice, nourishing monkey-nuts.’

They had got well outside the village, and were just passing a farm famous for its apple-orchard, when Emmeline was startled, and Micky interested, by sounds of wrath and battle.

‘Get out, you young varmint!’ shouted an angry voice; ‘and if ever I catch you in my orchard again I’ll give you such a warming——’

Emmeline lost the rest of the sentence in her fright and dismay at being almost knocked down by a ragged, dirty, and altogether disreputable little tramp, who rushed out into the road looking the very picture of guilt.

‘Diamond Jubilee!!!!!!’ she gasped, with at least six notes of horror in her voice, but terror of the promised warming had lent wings to Diamond Jubilee’s usually laggard feet, and he flew past her quite unheeding. He never once stopped till forty good yards lay between himself and the farm; then he turned round, and after making quite sure that he was not being pursued, gave vent to language which it was just as well Micky and Emmeline were too far off to catch. As it was they merely got the benefit of the eloquent gesture—a favourite one in Diamond Jubilee’s circle—by which he expressed his utter and unspeakable contempt for the farmer.

Perhaps it was then for the first time that Emmeline fully realised the appalling amount of training her adopted son would need before he would be at all a satisfactory missionary.

‘Micky, he’s a dreadful little boy!’ she gasped.

Indignation caused her to quicken her pace, and as Diamond Jubilee, now no longer in fear of pursuit, was sauntering along like the proverbial snail, they soon overtook him. He greeted them with a cool ‘Hello!’

‘Diamond Jubilee, I can’t tell you how ashamed and grieved I am,’ began Emmeline, in the voice which she considered suitable to a sorrow-stricken and virtuous parent addressing an unworthy child.

Diamond Jubilee gave her an impudent stare.

‘Garn!’ he said. ‘What are you getting at me for?’

‘I’m much too upset to “get” at you as you call it,’ said Emmeline, sorrowfully. ‘To think of you robbing an orchard, Diamond Jubilee, and after all I said to you this morning, too!’

It is painful to have to relate what followed, but as this is a true history of Diamond Jubilee Jones and of Micky, his adopted father, the regrettable incident cannot be shirked. Instead of being moved to penitence by Emmeline’s appeal, Diamond Jubilee’s only answer was to jerk his forefinger and thumb into a repetition of his former gesture, only this time it was pointed not towards the farm, but at Emmeline herself.

The sight was too much for Micky’s sense of chivalry.

‘I’ll teach you to cheek my sister!’ he shouted, flinging down his bag of nuts and rushing at Diamond Jubilee with doubled fists. ‘You little beast, you!’

Now Diamond Jubilee, though older and a trifle taller than Micky, was in nothing like as good form. Moreover, his recent visit to the apple-orchard had been a bad preparation for a stand-up fight; so in another minute he was lying on his back in the dusty road, while Micky was seated firmly aside his prostrate body.

‘No, I shan’t get up till you’ve apologised,’ said Micky sternly.

‘Ow! You’re hurting me!’ squealed Diamond Jubilee.

‘Micky, do get up,’ said Emmeline. ‘You may really hurt him.’

‘Don’t care if I do. Shan’t get up till he’s apologised,’ said Micky.

‘I’m sure he’s very sorry, aren’t you, Diamond Jubilee!’ said Emmeline.

‘Ow!’ squealed Diamond Jubilee again.

‘Say after me, “I humbly apologise for being a cad,”’ said Micky, relentlessly.

‘I humbly Polly’s eyes——’ gasped Diamond Jubilee, who would have said anything required of him at that moment. ‘Ow! Get off, can’t you?’

‘Say “for being a cad,”’ persisted Micky, ‘then I’ll get off.’

‘Micky, do get off,’ pleaded Emmeline, who was beginning to be really unhappy.

‘For being a cad,’ repeated Micky, firmly.

‘For being a cad,’ groaned Diamond Jubilee; on which Micky sprang up with the suddenness of a triumphant Jack-in-the-box.

‘Shake hands,’ commanded Micky, stretching out his paw as Diamond Jubilee rose from the ground slowly and rather sulkily. For a moment the street-arab seemed to hesitate. Then, sheepish but not unfriendly, he put his very grimy little hands into Micky’s.

‘That’s the sporting way to end a fight,’ explained Micky; ‘and now Emmeline and I will have to go home to dinner or we’ll be late, and though Aunt Grace went to London this morning, so that there isn’t her to think of, there’ll be a row with Jane, which is much worse.’

‘Yes, and we had better give you your own dinner, as we have met you,’ said Emmeline, ‘here it is—chocolate and monkey-nuts. They are quite the best foods there are,’ she added hastily; ‘anyone who eats them could do perfectly well without anything else.’

In spite of what she had said to Micky, a sneaking doubt as to whether Diamond Jubilee would approve of being the person to try the experiment, made Emmeline keep to general terms. There would be time enough to break to him that chocolate and monkey-nuts were to form his sole and lasting diet when he had already become fat and flourishing on them.

He accepted the two big bags of monkey-nuts and a small piece of milk chocolate (she had judged it best to break off a fraction of that dainty rather than to entrust him with the whole fortnight’s portion), without any particular sign, either of pleasure or disgust. Probably his half hour in the apple-orchard had made him unusually indifferent to what he ate.

‘I shan’t give you any more nuts for three weeks,’ Emmeline told him, ‘so you must be careful of them and not eat too many now. Can I trust you, I wonder? I’d keep them for you only it wouldn’t be convenient.’

It would not have been at all convenient. Jane had a tiresome habit of prying into cupboards and under beds and in all sorts of other places, which the children felt ought to have been considered private; and as another annoying trait in her character was a strong theory that nuts of all kinds were bad for young people, the presence, however unobtrusive, of two large bags of monkey-nuts in the house, would almost certainly have led to trouble.

‘Garn! I aren’t that fond of them monkey-nuts,’ said Diamond Jubilee mildly. He had not the faintest suspicion, poor boy, that they were expected to be his staple food even for that day, let alone for an indefinite number of days to come!

They left him sitting under a hedge eating his chocolate, and with a bag of monkey-nuts on either side of him. Numbers of other nuts which had been spilt out of Micky’s bag when he flung it down, lay scattered about the road, but Diamond Jubilee had made no effort to pick them up.

‘We forgot to tell him anywhere to meet us this afternoon,’ remarked Micky, as he and Emmeline were crossing the garden.

‘Oh, I don’t know that I want to meet him again,’ said Emmeline wearily—‘I mean not this afternoon,’ she added quickly, as Micky looked up at her with round-eyed surprise.