There was a tiny old lady there, with a great housekeeping apron on.  Esther gathered her right up in her arms, and they kissed and clung to each other till they were both crying.

“My little girl!” sobbed the little old lady, stroking, with eager hands, Esther’s wet hair and wetter cheeks.

And Bunty, who had followed close behind, looked from the tall figure of his stepmother to the very small one of her mother and laughed.

Esther darted back to the buggy, took the General from Pip, and, springing up the steps again, placed him in her mother’s arms.

“Isn’t he a fat ’un!” Bunty said, sharing in her pride; “just you look at his legs.”

The old lady sat down for one minute in the wettest chair she could find, and cuddled him close up to her.

But he doubled his little cold fists, fought himself free, and yelled for Esther.

Mr. Hassal had emptied the buggies by now, and came up the steps himself.

“Aren’t you going to give them some breakfast, little mother?” he said, and the old lady nearly dropped her grandson in her distress.

“Dear, dear!” she said.  “Well, well!  Just to think of it!  But it makes one forget.”

In ten minutes they were all in dry things, sitting in the warm dining-room and making prodigious breakfasts.

“Wasn’t I hungry!” Bunty said.  His mouth was full of toast, and he was slicing the top off his fourth egg and keeping an eye on a dish that held honey in one compartment and clotted cream in another.

“The dear old plates!” Esther picked hers up after she had emptied it and looked lovingly at the blue roses depicted upon it.  “And to think last time l ate off one I—–­”

“Was a little bride with the veil pushed back from your face,” the old lady said, “and everyone watching you cut the cake.  Only two have broken since—­oh yes, Hannah, the girl who came after Emily, chipped off the handle of the sugar-basin and broke a bit out of the slop-bowl.”

“Where did Father stand?” Meg asked.  She was peopling the room with wedding guests; the ham and the chops, the toast and eggs and dishes of fruit, had turned to a great white towered cake with silver leaves.

“Just up there where Pip is sitting,” Mrs. Hassal said, “and he was helping Esther with the cake, because she was cutting it with his sword.  Such a hole you made in the table-cloth, Esther, my very best damask one with the convolvulus leaves, but, of course, I’ve darned it—­dear, dear!”

Baby had upset her coffee all over herself and her plate and Bunty, who was next door.

She burst into tears of weariness and nervousness at the new people, and slipped off her chair under the table.  Meg picked her up.

“May I put her to bed?” she said; “she is about worn out.”

“Me, too,” Nellie said, laying down her half-eaten scone and pushing back her chair.  “Oh, I am so tired!”