By the time that Philip came home I had got in the rough outline of the plot.  He arrived with a box of properties, the mere size of which raised a cheer of welcome from the little ones, and red-hot for our theatricals.

Philip was a little apt to be red-hot over projects, and to cool before they were accomplished; but on this occasion we had no forebodings of such evil.  Besides, he was to play the dragon!  When he did fairly devote himself to anything, he grudged no trouble and hesitated at no undertakings.  He was so much pleased with my plot and with the cave, that he announced that he should paint a new forest scene for the occasion.  I tried to dissuade him.  There were so many other things to be done, and the old scene was very good.  But he had learnt several new tricks of the scene-painter’s trade, and was bent upon putting them into practice.  So he began his new scene, and I resolved to work all the harder at the odds and ends of our preparations.  To be driven into a corner and pressed for time always stimulated instead of confusing me.  I think the excitement of it is pleasant.  Alice had the same dogged way of working at a crisis, and we felt quite confident of being able to finish up “at a push,” whatever Philip might leave undone.  The theatricals were to be on Twelfth Night.

Christmas passed very happily on the whole.  I found my temper much oftener tried since Philip’s return, but this was not only because he was very wilful and very fond of teasing, but because with the younger ones I was always deferred to.

One morning we were very busy in the nursery, which was our workshop.  Philip’s glue-pots and size-pots were steaming, there were coloured powders on every chair, Alice and I were laying a coat of invisible green over the cave-cask, and Philip, in radiant good-humour, was giving distance to his woodland glades in the most artful manner with powder-blue, and calling on us for approbation—­when the housemaid came in.

“It’s not lunch-time?” cried Alice.  “It can’t be!”

“Get away, Mary,” said Philip, “and tell cook if she puts on any more meals I’ll paint her best cap pea-green.  She’s sending up luncheons and dinners all day long now:  just because she knows we’re busy.”

Mary only laughed, and said, “It’s a gentleman wants to see you, Master Philip,” and she gave him a card.  Philip read it, and we waited with some curiosity.

“It’s a man I met in the train,” said he, “a capital fellow.  He lives in the town.  His father’s a doctor there.  Granny must invite him to the theatricals.  Ask him to come here, Mary, and show him the way.”

“Oughtn’t you to go and fetch him yourself?” said I.

“I can’t leave this,” said Philip.  “He’ll be all right.  He’s as friendly as possible.”

I must say here that “Granny” was our maternal grandmother, with whom we lived.  My mother and father were cousins, and Granny’s husband was of that impetuous race to which we belonged.  If he had been alive he would have kept us all in good order, no doubt.  But he was dead, and Granny was the gentlest of old ladies:  I fear she led a terrible life with us all!