“But I know all about them, papa,” burst from Ann’s eager lips.

“You forget your French, Ann,” said Miss Ramsay, laying her hand on the little girl’s arm.  “You will be punished if you speak English again at meals.”

Ann colored and dropped her eyes.  She began to eat her bread and butter hastily; she longed beyond words to tell the others the knowledge she had secretly acquired about her cousins the Delaneys.

“‘Please send the wagonette to the station,’” continued Mr. Dolman, reading his wife’s letter, and holding it close to his eyes, “’and—­yes, the cart for the luggage, as the children’—­um, um, um, that part is private, my dears.”

Mr. Dolman dropped his spectacles and nodded at the eager little group round the table.

“Well,” he continued, “I am glad mamma is coming home.  I have really been quite bothered by the parishioners since she went away.  There is always a vast deal of work left undone when mamma is absent, eh, children? eh, Miss Ramsay?”

“I agree with you, Mr. Dolman,” said Miss Ramsay.  “Mrs. Dolman does not spare herself; she will have her reward some day.”

“God grant it!” said Mr. Dolman, with a heavy sigh.  “She certainly will need rest whenever she does leave this world, for I never did come across such an active woman.”

He left the room, hitching up his huge shoulders as he did so, and slammed the door noisily behind him.

“Papa would not do that if mamma were here,” whispered Philip to Ann.

Ann said “Hush!” in a frightened tone, and then Miss Ramsay folded her hands as an intimation to the children that the meal was at an end, and that one of them was to say grace.

Immediately after breakfast they went upstairs to the schoolroom, and lessons began, just as if no four little Delaneys were to arrive to turn everything topsy-turvy that evening.

Lessons proceeded without any interruption until twelve o’clock.  Then the three little girls retired to the neat bedroom which they shared together, and put on their sun-bonnets, their white capes, and their washing-gloves, and came back again to Miss Ramsay, equipped for their walk.  The boys, with straw hats sticking very far back on their heads, were also waiting Miss Ramsay’s pleasure in the hall downstairs.  The children and the governess went out walking solemnly two and two, Miss Ramsay and Conrad in front, Lucy and Mary following, with Ann and Philip behind.

It was a hot day; but Miss Ramsay never excused the morning walk on the dusty highroads.  The children came in very much flushed and tired at one o’clock for dinner.  They assembled again in the big, cool dining room and ate their roast mutton and peas and new potatoes, and rice pudding and stewed fruit with the propriety of children who have been thoroughly well brought up.

At dinner French was again the only language allowed to be spoken.  In consequence there was a sad dearth of any conversation at that dinner table.