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for it but to take it in turns to carry her. She is very stout, and you have no idea how heavy she is. A half-hearted, unadventurous person (I name no names, but Oswald, Alice, Noël, H. O., Dicky, Daisy, and Denny will understand me) said, why not go straight home and come another day without Martha? But the rest agreed with Oswald when he said it was only a mile, and perhaps we might get a lift home with the poor invalid. Martha was very grateful to us for our kindness. She put her fat white arms round the person's neck who happened to be carrying her. She is very affectionate, but by holding her very close to you you can keep her from kissing your face all the time. As Alice said, "Bulldogs do give you such large, wet, pink kisses."
A mile is a good way when you have to take your turn at carrying Martha.
At last we came to a hedge with a ditch in front of it, and chains swinging from posts to keep people off the grass and out of the ditch, and a gate with "The Cedars" on it in gold letters. All very neat and tidy, and showing plainly that more than one gardener was kept. There we stopped. Alice put Martha down, grunting with exhaustedness, and said:
"Look here, Dora and Daisy, I don't believe a bit that it's his grandmother. I'm sure Dora was right, and it's only his horrid sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think we'd better chuck it; we're sure to catch it for interfering. We always do."
"The cross of true love never did come smooth," said the Dentist. "We ought to help him to bear his cross."
"But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll marry her," Dicky said, in tones of gloominess and despair.
Oswald felt the same, but he said, "Never mind. We should all hate it, but perhaps Albert's uncle might like it. You can never tell. If you want to do a really unselfish action and no kid, now's your time, my late Wouldbegoods."
No one had the face to say right out that they didn't want to be unselfish.
But it was with sad hearts that the unselfish seekers opened the long gate and went up the gravel drive between the rhododendrons and other shrubberies towards the house.
I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of anybody is called the representative of the family if his father isn't there. This was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got to the last turn of the drive it was settled that the others were to noiselessly ambush in the rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on alone and ask at the house for the grandmother from India—I mean Miss Ashleigh.
So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how neat the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all bright and speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green parrot in a cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying clean and untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of his boots and how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone into the farmyard after eggs before starting that morning. As he stood there in anxious uncertainness he heard a low voice among the bushes. It said, "Hist! Oswald, here!" and it was the voice of Alice.
So he went back to the others among the shrubs, and they all crowded round their leader, full of impartable news.
"She's not in the house; she's here," Alice said, in a low whisper that seemed nearly all S's. "Close by—she went by just this minute with a gentleman."
"And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and she's got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I never saw any one look so silly in all my born," Dicky said.
"It's sickening," Denny said, trying to look very manly with his legs wide apart.
"I don't know," Oswald whispered. "I suppose it wasn't Albert's uncle?"
"Not much," Dicky briefly replied.
"Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that with this other fellow, she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is safe. And we've really done an unselfish action without having to suffer for it afterwards." With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he spoke in real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed. But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping to look about her a bit in the shrubbery. "Where's Martha?" Dora suddenly said.
"She went that way," pointingly remarked H. O.
"Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go for?" Oswald said; "and look sharp. Don't make a row."
He went. A minute later we heard a hoarse squeak from Martha—the one she always gives when suddenly collared from behind—and a little squeal in a lady-like voice, and a man say "Hallo!" and then we knew that H. O. had once more rushed in where angels might have thought twice about it. We hurried to the fatal spot, but it was too late. We were just in time to hear H. O. say:
"I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you. Are you Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother?"
"No," said our lady, unhesitatingly.
It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now going on. We stood still. The man was standing up. He was a clergyman, and I found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever knew, except our own Mr. Bristow at Lewisham, who is now a canon, or a dean, or something grand that no one ever sees. At present I did not like him. He said: "No, this lady is nobody's grandmother. May I ask in return how long it is since you escaped from the lunatic asylum, my poor child, and where your keeper is?"
H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say: "I think you are very rude, and not at all funny, if you think you are."
The lady said: "My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all the others, and are you pilgrims again to-day?"
H. O. does not always answer questions. He turned to the man and said:
"Are you going to marry the lady?"
"Margaret," said the clergyman, "I never thought it would come to this: he asks me my intentions!"
"If you are," said H. O., "it's all right; because if you do, Albert's uncle can't—at least, not till you're dead. And we don't want him to."
"Flattering, upon my word," said the clergyman, putting on a deep frown. "Shall I call him out, Margaret, for his poor opinion of you, or shall I send for the police?"
Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and rather scared. She broke cover and sprang into the middle of the scene.
"Don't let him rag H. O. any more," she said, "it's all our faults. You see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find you, we thought perhaps you were his long-lost heiress sister or his old nurse who alone knew the secret of his birth, or something, and we asked him, and he said you were his long-lost grandmother he had known in India. And we thought that must be a mistake and that really you were his long-lost sweetheart. And we tried to do a really unselfish act and find you for him. Because we don't want him to be married at all."
"It isn't because we don't like you," Oswald cut in, now emerging from the bushes; "and if he must marry, we'd sooner it was you than any one. Really we would."
"A generous concession, Margaret," the strange clergyman uttered, "most generous, but the plot thickens. It's almost pea-soup-like now. One or two points clamor for explanation. Who are these visitors of yours? Why this Red Indian method of paying morning calls? Why the lurking attitude of the rest of the tribe which I now discern among the undergrowth? Won't you ask the rest of the tribe to come out and join the glad throng?"
Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same songs we do, and books and tunes and things.
The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as if she was going to cry. But she couldn't help laughing, too, as more and more of us came out.
"And who," the clergyman went on—"who in fortune's name is Albert? And who is his uncle? And what have they or you to do in this galère—I mean garden?"
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