Bulbs and Blossoms

by

Amy Le Feuvre

author of

"Probable Sons", "Teddy's Button", etc

Illustrated by Eveline Lance

London

The Religious Tract Society

56 Paternoster Row &

65 St Pauls Churchyard

CHAPTER I

The Ugly Flower Pots

T was five o'clock in the afternoon. Miss Hunter, a tall, dignified-looking woman, was presiding at the afternoon tea-table in the drawing-room of Chatts Chase. Miss Amabel Hunter stood at the window in a rather muddy riding-habit, and she was speaking in her sharp, short tones to her twin sister Hester, who lay back in the depths of a large armchair, a novel open in her lap. Sitting by the cheery wood fire was the youngest of the sisters, a frail and delicate invalid. She was turning her face anxiously towards the speaker, and now put in her word very gently.

'We only thought, Amabel, that it would have comforted the poor children if you had returned with them in the brougham. An aunt would naturally have been more acceptable to them than a strange maid.'

'But I tell you, Sibyl, they are with their own nurse, and Graham will be far more likely to put them all at ease than I should. They will hear that "Miss 'Unter, is the missis, and lets every one know she is. Miss 'Ester keeps the maids on their legs all day long because she won't use hers. Miss H'Amabel does the sporting gent, and is never indoors except to meals; while Miss Sibyl—well, there, she is not much 'count in the fam'ly, for she can't say bo to a goose, and doesn't mind how people put on her!"'

'You saw the children, I suppose?' questioned Miss Hunter gravely.

'Of course I did. I rode down to the station for that express purpose. They are two skinny, puny little monkeys, enveloped in bundles of wraps. I packed them all up comfortably in the carriage, and rode on to tell you of their arrival. I don't seem to have done the right thing, as usual; but that is always the way. Here is the carriage lumbering up the drive. Now you had all better go out on the steps and overwhelm them with kisses and caresses. Only may I ask that they should be taken straight up to their nursery, and not brought in here?'

'One would think, to hear you talk, that you hated children,' murmured Miss Sibyl; 'it is a good thing that Percy and his wife cannot hear you.'

Miss Hunter left the room at once, and curiosity drew Sibyl and Hester after her, to see the little nephew and niece who had been sent to them from India from their only brother.

The four Miss Hunters lived very comfortably together, though they were all, with the exception of Sibyl, rather self-willed, opinionated women. All of them being well over forty, and grey hairs plentiful between them, they had earned the distinction of being looked upon as 'old maids,' and some wag having one day obliterated the 'h' in Chatts Chase, the house was now familiarly called 'Pussy's Chase.' This did not disturb the good ladies when it came to their ears, for they had large souls, a keen sense of humour, and too much interest in life to be fretted by village gossip.

They were now full of plans and purposes regarding the two small children about to be placed in their charge, and no two visitors could have caused more excitement and preparation in the quiet household than did this little couple from India.

'Well,' asked Miss Amabel, as, after a great deal of bustle and talk in the hall, the sisters came back to the drawing-room, 'and what are your impressions of the kids?'

'Poor little mites!' said Miss Sibyl; 'they seem so very white and sickly in appearance, that we were quite astonished at the way they scampered upstairs. I am thankful they were sent back in charge of an English nurse. Those ayahs are always so unsatisfactory.'

Before many days the children astonished their aunts still more by their agility and ingenuity in mischief of all sorts. Roland, a fair, curly-haired little fellow of seven, led his smaller sister Olive into every kind of audacious escapade. Their spirits were unflagging, though at times their frail-looking little bodies seemed to droop under their activity.

Miss Hunter came upon little Olive one afternoon sitting on the stairs in a breathless, exhausted state, and Roland was remonstrating with her.

'You've only run up twenty-five times, Olive, and you're tired already; it's a mile race, and you must go on.'

'She must do nothing of the sort, Roland,' said Miss Hunter sternly. 'I will not let you tear up and down stairs all day in this fashion. What do you mean by it?'

'We can't be idle, auntie,' said Roland, shaking his curls back, and speaking with decision. 'Nurse has the toothache, and won't take us out. Father says people can be idle very easily, and put it down to the climate, and "idle hands find mischief," he says, and father is never idle. If we don't run up and down stairs, where can we run? We like the stairs best, because we never have stairs in India.'

'Send them into the garden, Marion,' called out Miss Amabel, from the garden door; 'I am going to the stables, and then I will look after them.'

Little Olive jumped up.

'Oh, let us go out, auntie, and see the pretty flowers.'

'You must be very good children then. Go quietly upstairs, and ask nurse to wrap you up well, as it is rather cold out.'

And then Miss Hunter, who found children rather a perplexing problem, walked back to her book and her fireside, and thought no more about them.

Roland and Olive danced out of doors a little time after, in delight at finding themselves unattended.

'Now,' said Roland peremptorily, 'we're going for a walk, Olive, and you are not to get tired. And we'll go and find those big iron gates first of all; they're down this road.'

Down the avenue trotted the children; it was fully half a mile long, and the thick shrubberies on either side rather alarmed the little girl.

'You're quite sure there isn't a tiger in the bushes?' she asked repeatedly.

And Roland in superior tones replied,—

'I've told you the English people caught all their tigers long ago, and put them in a garden in London. Father told me so.'

'And what's outside the big gates, Roly—a jungle?'

'No, I think the trains are. I want to go and see them. Come on!'

They reached the gates, but found them shut, and as Roland was exerting all his strength to open them, an old man stepped out of the pretty little lodge close by.

'Why, where be ye off to, little master?' he asked with a beaming smile. 'Isn't your nurse with you this afternoon?'

'No; we're taking a walk. Open the gates, please.'

But this