So it went on, with merry chat and a good deal of real preparation, till the early darkness came on, and a great noise in the haul announced the return of ‘the boys,’ among whom Lady Merrifield still classed her colonel brother. They were muddy up to the eyes, but they had seen a great deal more than was easy to understand in their incoherent accounts. Wilfed had rolled into a wet ditch, and been picked out by his uncle and hung up to dry at a little village inn, where--this seemed to have been the supreme glory--they had made a meal on pigs’-liver and bread-and-cheese before plodding home again--losing their way under Wilfred’s confident pilotage--finding themselves five miles from home--getting a cast in a cart for the two little boys just as Fergus was almost ready to cry--Colonel Mohun and Jasper walking alongside of the carter for two miles, and conversing in a friendly manner, though the man said he knew the soldier by his step, and thought it was a pool-trade. Finally, he directed them by a short cut, which proved to be through a lane of clay and pools of such an adhesive nature that Fergus had to be pulled out step by step by main force by his uncle, who deposited him on some stones at the other end, and then came back to assist the struggles of Wilfred, who was slowly proceeding with Jasper’s help. ‘And that’s the way we make you spend your Christmas holiday, Regie,’ said Lady Merrifield. ‘Never mind. Lily; mud was a congenial element to us both in old times, you know, so no wonder your brood take to it like ducks or hippopotamuses. I say, we ought to have come in by the rear. Couldn’t that imp of a buttons of yours come and scrape us before we go upstairs?’ ‘You are certainly grown older, Regie. You never would have thought of that once.’ ‘No more would you, Lily--so do yourself justice.’ However, when five o’clock tea was spread in the drawing-room, and the Hacket ladies came in, Constance beheld such a splendid vision of a fine, fair, though sunburnt face, long, light moustaches, and tall figure, that she instantly assumed her most affected graces, and did not wonder the less that the Mohuns were all so very high. Dolores’s strong desire for a private interview with her uncle died away when Constance carried off the cheque. She knew he would tell her she had no right to give it, and she did not want to be told so, nor to have any special inquiries made. She was not sorry that an invitation from a neighbour kept him and Hal out shooting all Saturday, and, on the other hand, she so far shrank from Constance’s talk about Mr. Flinders as not to be vexed that it was too wet on Sunday afternoon for any going down to Casement Cottages. It was on that wet afternoon, however, that Uncle Reginald, crossing the hall for once without his tail of followers, saw her slowly dragging downstairs with a book in her hand. ‘Well, Miss Doll,’ he said; ‘you don’t look very jolly! What’s the matter?’ ‘Nothing, Uncle Regie.’