"You know my son, I believe?" said Mrs. Morrison in the stiffest voice; for the girl's face showed neither recognition nor pleasure, and though she would have been angry if she had looked unduly pleased she was still angrier that she should look indifferent. "Yes. I met him yesterday. Did you want my uncle? His name is Neumann. Neumann-Schultz. He's out." "I only wanted to give him this umbrella," said Robin, with a swift glance at his mother as he drew it from under his arm. Would she recognize it? He had chosen one of the most ancient; the one most appropriate, as he thought, to the general appearance of the man Neumann. "What umbrella is that, Robin?" asked his mother suspiciously. Really, it was more than odd that Robin, whom she had left immersed in study, should have got into Baker's Farm so quickly. Could he have been expected? And had Providence, in its care for the righteous cause of mothers, brought her here just in time to save him from this girl's toils? The girl's indifference could not be real; and if it was not, her good acting only betrayed the depths of her experience and balefulness. "What umbrella is that?" asked Mrs. Morrison. "It's his," said Robin, throwing his head back and looking at his mother as he laid it with elaborate care on the table. "My uncle's?" said Priscilla. "Had he lost it? Oh thank you--he would have been dreadfully unhappy. Sit down." And she indicated with her head the chair she would allow him to sit on. "The way she tells us to sit down!" thought Mrs. Morrison indignantly. "As though she were a queen." Aloud she said, "You could have sent Joyce round with it"--Joyce being that gardener whose baby's perambulator was wheeled by another Ethel--"and need not have interrupted your work." "So I could," said Robin, as though much struck by the suggestion. "But it was a pleasure," he added to Priscilla, "to be able to return it myself. It's a frightful bore losing one's umbrella--especially if it's an old friend." "Uncle Fritzi's looks as if it were a very old friend," said Priscilla, smiling at it. Mrs. Morrison glanced at it too, and then glanced again. When she glanced a third time and her glance turned into a look that lingered Robin jumped up and inquired if he should not put it in the passage. "It's in the way here," he explained; though in whose way it could be was not apparent, the table being perfectly empty. Priscilla made no objection, and he at once removed it beyond the reach of his mother's eye, propping it up in a dark corner of the passage and telling Mrs. Pearce, whom he found there that it was Mr. Neumann's umbrella. "No it ain't," said Mrs. Pearce. "Yes it is," said Robin. "No it ain't. He's took his to Minehead," said Mrs. Pearce. "It is, and he has not," said Robin. "I see him take it," said Mrs. Pearce. "You did not," said Robin.