‘Now you’re in properly—at last!’ ‘You needn’t pretend any more——’ ‘But we knew all along you were really trying hard to get in?’ ‘I really believe I was,’ said he, getting in a chance remark. They covered him with kisses. ‘We never thought you were as important as you pretended,’ Jonah said; ‘and your being so big made no difference.’ ‘Or your beard, Uncle Paul,’ added Toby. ‘And we never think people old till they’re married,’ Jonah explained, putting the mitre on his uncle’s head. ‘So now we can have our aventures all together,’ exclaimed Nixie, kissing him swiftly, and leaping off his knee. The other two followed her example, and suddenly—he never quite understood how it happened so quickly—the summer-house was empty, and he was alone with the moonlight. A flash of white petticoats and slender black legs on the lawn, and lo, they were gone! On the gravel path outside sounded a quick step. Paul started with surprise. The very next minute Mlle. Fleury, in her town clothes and hat, appeared round the corner. ‘’Ow then!’ she exclaimed sharply, ‘the little ones zey are no more ’ere? Mr Rivairs...!’ She shook her finger at him. Paul tried to look dignified. For the moment, however, he quite forgot the tea-cosy still balanced on his head. ‘Mademoiselle Fleury,’ he said politely, ‘the children have gone to bed.’ ‘It is ’igh time that they are already in bed, only I hear their voices now this minute,’ she went on excitedly. ‘They ’ide here, do they not?’ ‘I assure you, Mademoiselle, they have gone to bed,’ Paul said. The woman stared at him with amazement in her eyes. He wondered why. Then, with a crash, something fell from the skies, hitting his nose on the way down, and bounding on to the ground. ‘Oh, the mitre!’ he cried with a laugh, ‘I clean forgot it was there.’ He kicked it aside and stared with confusion at his companion. She looked very neat and trim in her smart town frock. He understood now why she stared so, and his cheeks flamed crimson, though it was too dark for them to be seen. ‘Meester Reevairs,’ she said at length, the desire to laugh and the desire to scold having fought themselves to a standstill, so that her face betrayed no expression at all, ‘you lead zem astray, I think.’ ‘On the contrary, it is they who lead me,’ he said self-consciously. ‘In fact, they have just deprived me of my very best armour——’ ‘Armour!’ she interrupted, ‘_Armoire_! Ah! They ’ide upstairs in the cupboard,’—and she turned to run. ‘Do not be harsh with them,’ he cried after her, ‘it is all my fault really. I am to blame, not they.’ ‘’Arsh! Oh no!’ she called back to him. ‘Only, you know, if your seester find them at this hour not in bed——’ Paul lost the end of the sentence as she turned the corner of the house. He gathered up the remnants of the ceremony and followed slowly in her footsteps.