It came to be an ordinary thing during successive summers (and be it noted that to a young child the world is always summer, and chill winter but a thing of a week or two, to be happily forgotten), for Charlie Purdue to spend a great deal of his time with Old Paul's babies; in effect, he made a fourth, and spent many hours with them in the house, and in rambling about the countryside. He knew more about that countryside than they did, and was learned in the ways of birds and beasts and fishes; he opened up new worlds to them. His was a happy-go-lucky, mischief-loving nature; and they followed him after a time, awe-struck and admiring. Had Old Paul but known, heads were nodded over him across many a country tea-table, shoulders were shrugged and eyebrows raised, and he formed for a time the chief topic of conversation. The mere sight of him, strolling through a country lane with his hat on the back of his head and his short pipe in his mouth, and with the three children clinging to him, or playing about him, was extraordinary enough; that he should keep up that great house, solely, as it seemed, for their benefit, and should keep himself and them apart from his neighbours, was stranger still. One or two daring spirits took upon themselves to call upon him; but in few instances did Old Paul suggest, by his manner of speech or his smile, that he would be glad to see the visitors again. In the case of the Baffalls, Paul opened his heart at once. He had heard of them and of their coming, as, indeed, had all Daisley Cross. It had not been easy to lose sight of the Baffalls when once they loomed upon the place. For they came in force; huge furniture vans lumbered along the roads, and taxed the strength of the bridges; servants in flies, superciliously eyeing the country, arrived to put things in order; and finally, after a delay, the Baffalls themselves. A brand-new carriage met them at the little station, and they drove shyly through the village to their newly-furnished house, and held each other's hands as they went, and looked nervously about them. For they only knew London (wherein their money had been made); and the country to which they were retiring was new and strange and awful. Mrs. Baffall would never have come to the country but that she had heard it was the thing to do; and Mr. Baffall would never have come but for Mrs. Baffall. Then, of course, they came to hear about Old Paul and the babies; and instantly Mrs. Baffall was excited. It had been the tragedy of her life that she had had no children; she had lain awake at nights, many and many a time in her hard-working life, and had held a dream child to her breast that ached for the touch of little lips. And here was a bachelor with three of them!