“Aunt Patricia!” screamed little Elsie, darting forward and clasping her arms around the astonished old lady’s knees.  “Oh, Aunt Patricia!  We’re lost! Please take us home!”

If a dirty little grizzly bear had suddenly sprung up in the path and begun hugging her, Miss Patricia could not have been more amazed than she was at the sight of the ragged child who clung to her.  She pushed back the old silk muffler from the tousled curls, and looked wonderingly on the child’s blood-stained face with the blue bump still swelling on the forehead.

“Caroline Driggs,” she called to the lady who stood waiting for her at the carriage door, “am I dreaming?  I never saw my nephew’s children in such a plight before.  I can scarcely believe they are his.”

“Oh, we are!  We are!” screamed little Elsie.  “I’ll just die if you say we are not!”

Phil stood by, too shamefaced to plead for himself, yet fearful that she might take Elsie and leave him to his fate, because he had refused to apologise for his rude speech.

Miss Patricia had been spending the day with Mrs. Driggs, who was an old friend of hers, and who was now about to take her home in her carriage.  Mrs. Driggs seemed to understand the situation at a glance.  “Come on,” she said.  “We’ll put the children in here with us; the monkey and the rest of the gypsy outfit can go up with the coachman.  Here, Sam, take this little beast on the seat with you, and lift up the barrow, too.”

If those children were half as glad to sink down on the comfortable cushions as I was to snuggle under the coachman’s warm lap-robe, then I am sure that Mrs. Driggs’s elegant carriage never held three more grateful hearts.  As we climbed to our places I heard Mrs. Driggs say, kindly:  “So the little ones were masquerading, were they?  It is a cold day for such sport.”

Miss Patricia answered, in a voice that trembled with displeasure:  “Really, Caroline, I am more deeply mortified than I can say, to think that any one bearing my name—­the proud, unsullied name of Tremont—­could go parading the streets, in the garb of a beggar, asking for alms.  I cannot trust myself to speak of it calmly.”

All the way home I felt sorry for Phil.  I didn’t envy him having to sit there, facing Miss Patricia, with his conscience hurting him as it must have done.  That is the advantage of being a monkey.  We have no consciences to trouble us.  I didn’t envy his home-coming, either, although I knew he would be glad enough to creep into his warm, soft bed.  His feet were badly blistered from his long tramp in his new shoes.

Stuart looked after my comfort, and I was soon curled up snugly on a cushion before the fire.  Phil and Elsie had a hot bath, and hot bread and milk, and were put to bed at once.  Elsie was coughing at nearly every breath, and the doctor seemed troubled when he came up to rub some soothing lotion on the poor little swelled forehead.  He brought something for Phil’s blistered feet, too, but he never spoke a word all the time he was putting it on.