“Is it the key?” asked Colonel Brownlow.

“Yes,” said Janet, “the key of her davenport, and directions in which drawer to find the letters you want.  Do you like to have them at once, Uncle Robert?”

“Thank you-—yes, for then I can go round and settle with that fellow Martin, which I can’t do without knowing exactly what passed between him and your mother.”

Janet went off, observing-—"I wonder whether that is a possibility;” while Miss Ogilvie put in an anxious inquiry for Mrs. Brownlow’s health and spirits, and a good many more details were elicited than Johnny had given at home.  She had never broken down, and now that she was hopeful, was, in spite of her fatigue, as bright and merry as ever, and was contributing comic pictures to the “Traveller’s Joy,” while Lord Fordham did the sketches.  Those kind people were as careful of her as any could be.

“And what are her further plans?” asked Miss Ogilvie.  “Has she been able to form any?”

“Hardly,” said Johnny.  “They must stay at Leukerbad for a month for Jock to have the course of waters rightly, and indeed Armine could hardly be moved sooner.  I think Dr. Medlicott wants them to keep in Switzerland till the heat of the weather is over, and then winter in the south.”

“And when may I go to Armine?”

“When shall we get away from here?” asked Babie and Elfie in a breath.

“I don’t quite know,” said John.  “There is not much room to spare in the hotel where they are at Leukerbad, and it is a dreadfully slow place.  Evelyn is growling like a dozen polar bears at it.”

“Why isn’t he gone back with you to Eton?”

“I believe it was settled that he was not to go back this half, for fear of his lungs, and you see he is a swell who takes it easily.  He would have been glad enough to return with me though, and would scarcely have endured staying, but that he is so fond of Jock.”

“What is there to be done there?”

“Nothing, except to wade in tepid mud.  Fordham has routed out a German to read Faust with, and that puts Evelyn into a sweet temper.  They go on expeditions, and do sketching and botany, which amuses Armine; but they get up some fun over the queer people, and do them for the mag., but it is all deadly lively, not that I saw much of it, for we only got down from Schwarenbach on Monday, and they kept me in bed all the two next days; but Jock and Evelyn hate it awfully.  Indeed Jock is so down in the mouth altogether I don’t know what to make of him, and just when the German doctors say the treatment makes people particularly brisk and lively.”

“Perhaps what makes a German lively makes an Englishman grave,” sagely observed Babie.

“Jock grave must be a strange sight,” said the Colonel; “I am afraid he can’t be recovering properly.”

“The doctor thinks he is,” said John; “but then he doesn’t know the nature of the Skipjack.  But,” he added, in a low voice, “that night was enough to make any one grave, and it was much the worst to Jock, because he kept his senses almost all the time, and was a good deal hurt besides to begin with.  His sprain is still so bad that he has to be carried upstairs and to go to the baths in a chair.”