John was surprised and depressed when the train arrived at Wrottesford to find that the member of the Ambles party who had elected to meet him was Hilda; and there was a long argument on the platform who should drive in the dogcart and who should drive in the fly. John did not want to ride on the back seat of the dogcart, which he would have to do unless he drove himself, a prospect that did not attract him when he saw how impatiently the mare was dancing about through the extreme lateness of the train. Hilda objected to driving with his housekeeper in the fly, and in the end John was compelled to let Maud and Mrs. Worfolk occupy the dogcart, while he and Hilda toiled along the wet lanes in the fly. It was decided to leave the greater portion of the luggage to be fetched in the morning, but even so it was after eight o'clock before they got away from the station, and John, when he found himself immured with Hilda in the musty interior of the hired vehicle was inclined to prophesy a blue Christmas this year. To begin with, Hilda would try to explain the system she had pursued in allotting the various bedrooms to accommodate the large party that was expected at Ambles. It was bad enough so long as she confined herself to a verbal exposition, but when she produced a map of the house, evidently made by Hugh on an idle evening, and to illuminate her dispositions struck away most of John's matches, it became exasperating. His brain was already fatigued by the puzzle of fitting into two vehicles four pieces, one of which might not move to the square next two of the remaining pieces, and another of which could not move backward. "I leave it entirely to you," he declared, introducing at last into the intellectual torment of chess some of the happy irresponsibleness of bridge. "You mustn't set me these chess problems in a jolting fly before dinner." "Chess!" Hilda sniffed with a shiver. "Draughts would be a better name." She did not often make jokes, and before John had recovered sufficiently from his surprise to congratulate her with a hearty laugh, she was off again upon her querulous and rambling narration of the family news. "If everything _had_ been left to me, I might have managed, but Hugh's interference, apparently authorized by you, upset all my poor little arrangements. I need hardly say that Mama was so delighted to have her favorite at home with her that she has done everything since his arrival to encourage his self-importance. It's Hughie this and Hughie that, until I get quite sick of the sound of his name. And he's very unkind to poor little Harold. Apart from being very coarse and sarcastic in front of him, he is sometimes quite brutal. Only this morning he shot him in the upper part of the leg with a pellet from the poor little man's own air-gun." John did laugh this time, and shouted "Merry Christmas!" to a passing wagon. "I dare say it sounds very funny to you. But it made Harold cry."