They came back at nine in the evening and found Dorothy, Michael and Nicholas sitting up for them.  Michael and Nicky were excited, but Dorothy looked grown-up and important.

“Uncle Morrie’s come,” they said.

“Dorothy saw him first—­”

“Nicky let him in—­”

“He hadn’t got a hat on.”

“We kept him in the schoolroom till Nanna could come and put him to bed.”

“He was crying because he’d been to Grannie’s house and there wasn’t anybody there—­”

“And because he’d lost the love-birds he’d brought for Auntie Emmy—­”

“And because he couldn’t remember which of us was dead.”

“No, Mummy, nobody’s seen him but us and Nanna.”

“Nanna’s with him now.”

Uncle Morrie never accounted, even to himself, for the time he had spent between the arrival of his ship at Tilbury on Sunday morning and that Saturday afternoon.  Neither could he remember what had become of his luggage or whether he had ever had any.  Only the County Council man, going his last rounds in the farthest places of the Heath, came upon a small bundle tied in a blue handkerchief, a cap belonging to E.D.  Boulger, of the S.S. Arizona, a cage of love-birds, and a distinct impression of a recumbent human form, on the grass together, under a young birch tree.

In the stuffy little house behind the Judge’s Walk the four women lived now under male protection.  When they crossed the Heath they had no longer any need to borrow Anthony from Frances; they had a man of their own.  To make room for him Auntie Louie and her type-writer were turned out of their own place, and Auntie Louie had to sleep in Grannie’s bed, a thing she hated.  To make room for the type-writer the grey parrot was turned out of the dining-room into the drawing-room.  And as Maurice couldn’t stand either the noise of the type-writer or the noises of the parrot he found both the dining-room and the drawing-room uninhabitable.

Day after day Dorothy and Michael and Nicky, on the terrace, looked out for his coming. (Only extreme distance made Uncle Morrie’s figure small and harmless and pathetic.) Day after day he presented himself with an air of distinction and assurance, flushed, and a little battered, but still handsome, wearing a spruce grey suit and a panama hat bought with Anthony’s money.  Sheep-farming in Australia—­he had infinitely preferred the Cape Mounted Police—­had ruined Maurice’s nerves.  He was good for nothing but to lounge in Anthony’s garden, to ride his horses—­it was his riding that had got him into the Cape Mounted Police—­to sit at his table and drink his wines, and, when there was no more wine for him, to turn into Jack Straw’s Castle for a pick-me-up on his way home.

And before July was out three others were added to the garden group:  Bartholomew and Vera and Veronica.  And after them a fourth, Vera’s friend, Captain Ferdinand Cameron, home on sick leave before anybody expected him.