The Adventurous Seven | Page 3

the seven of us," returned Nealie in a scornful tone.
"We can go in the morning, for the vicar is going to a Diocesan Conference, and he has given us a holiday. He told me about it to-night," said Rupert.
"That will be lovely. Then we will have Aunt Judith's chair for you and Ducky, it will be just a jolly jaunt for us; only we must be at The Paddock early, to catch Mr. Runciman before he goes out," said Nealie.
"I would rather walk----" began Ducky, with a touch of petulance in her voice, but Nealie stopped her quickly with a whisper:
"You must ride, darling, or Rupert won't have the chair, and a long walk does take it out of him so badly you know."
"If we have the chair, Don and I will be the horses, and we will go down Coombe Lane at a gallop," said Billykins, with a festive prance.
"That will be perfectly lovely, only Rupert will have to hold me tightly or I shall be tossed out at the turn, and I might damage my nose again," replied Ducky, with a gleeful chuckle.
By this time they had reached Beechleigh, and turning short across the green by the pond they tramped in at the gate of the funny little house where their great-aunt, Miss Judith Webber, had lived and died, and which was the only home they had known since Ducky was a tiny babe.
Mrs. Puffin, a lean little widow of mouldy aspect, opened the door to let them in and exclaimed loudly to see how damp they were.
"Now you will all be catching colds, and I shall have to nurse you," she said in a woebegone tone, as she felt them all round. "If you must go out in the wet in this fashion, why can't you take umbrellas?"
"Because we haven't got them," answered Nealie, with a laugh. She mostly laughed about their limitations, because it made them just a little easier to bear. "The little boys had the last umbrella that we possess to play at Bedouin tents with on Tuesday, and they had a sad accident and broke three of its ribs, poor thing. But we shall not catch cold, Mrs. Puffin, because we are all going straight to bed."
"But I am hungry," protested Billykins.
"I know, and so am I; but we will all have a big piece of seed cake when we get into bed, and go to sleep to dream of big bowls of steaming porridge with brown sugar on the top," said Nealie; and the vision proved so alluring that all seven trooped up the dark stairs and crowded into the small bedrooms, feeling quite cheerful in spite of tired limbs, hunger, and the discomfort of damp clothes.
But their voices hushed, and a wistful look crept into their faces, as they passed the door leading into Aunt Judith's empty bedroom. The old lady had loved them so dearly, and they had given her love for love in unstinted measure, so that now she was dead there was an awful blank in their hearts and their lives.
Being very tired and very healthy, however, they went to sleep directly they tumbled into bed; indeed Ducky could not keep awake long enough to eat her cake, so Nealie laid it on the chair by the little girl's bed for her to find when she opened her eyes in the morning.
Sleep was longer in coming to Nealie than to the others. She was older than they were, and had been mother to them so long that she was apt to be thinking out ways and means when she ought to have been asleep.
It would be too utterly delightful to go out to Australia and live with her father. It was nearly seven years since she had seen him, and her heart was always aching at the thought of his lonely exile.
If only Mr. Runciman would consent to their going! But would he?
"Well, it is of no use to worry and to wonder; we must just wait and see. But I think when all seven of us go marching into that splendid library of his at The Paddock, he will be so dismayed to see what a lot of us there are, that he will be quite ready to take the very shortest way of getting rid of the bother of looking after us," she said to herself, with a soft little laugh which rippled through the dark room and even made itself heard in the other room across the passage where the four boys were sleeping; and Rupert, who had been having bad dreams because his lame foot was hurting rather badly, smiled in his uneasy slumber and straightway drifted off into a more profound repose, from which he did not wake until the misty September dawning