"Well, there is no need for me to go fagging round too, and someone ought to stay by the things, or they might be stolen. One never knows if there are tramps about." She seated herself comfortably on the grass with her back against a basket and waited. It never occurred to her to unpack the baskets and begin to arrange the tea-table, nor to take up the frightened kittens and try to stop their cries. She just sat there revelling in the sunshine and the breeze, and the scent of the furze-blossom. It was so beautiful that she almost forgot everything unpleasant or worrying. In the distance she caught sight of a man on horseback galloping across the moor, and began to weave a story of bearers of secret tidings, plots and enemies, in which the distant horseman was the hero and she the heroine, and she had just reached, in her own mind, a village wedding and little girls strewing in the path of a noble one-armed hero and a bride, white as a lily save for her crown of burnished hair, when Irene returned, and with a little sigh of weariness dropped on the ground beside her. "We can't find him," she sighed, "and those poor babies are breaking their hearts. What can we do?" Irene was really distressed, but Audrey, with her eyes fixed on the horseman, and her thoughts on the story she might write, had none left for sympathy with two children and a lost rabbit. "Oh, he is quite old," she cried involuntarily. The rider was near enough now for her to see that his hair was grey and--oh, horror, that he had a beard! Irene looked up in surprise. "Who?" she inquired, "Nibbler?" Then her eyes followed Audrey's, and with a cry of delight and surprise she sprang to her feet. "Why, it's grandfather!" and ran forward to meet him. Audrey was glad that she did so--she was glad to be alone for one moment, in which to recover herself. Oh how thankful she was that no one could read her thoughts, how thankful that no one knew what she had been thinking. She saw the rider dismount and greet Irene, she saw Irene tuck her arm contentedly through his arm and lead him forward; and she had scarcely recovered from her confusion when Irene brought him up to her saying, "This is my grandfather, Audrey." "Grandfather, you have heard us talk of Audrey, the girl we travelled down with the day we came to you. Mr. Carlyle and all the rest are looking for the children's rabbit. The poor dears brought him out to share the picnic and he has hopped off on his own account. Now you must stay here and talk to Audrey while I go and look for him just over there. I think we haven't looked in that clump of ferns yet." Mr. Vivian slipped the rein from off his arm and left his horse free to crop the grass. "He will be safe," he said reassuringly, "he will not go far from me. Peter is more dependable than the rabbit Irene was speaking of."