Phoena, seriously, “which garden slug is that? Is it the grey—”

“It’s the garden slug, I tell you,” said Andrew, impatiently, evidently not appreciating Phoena’s thirst for further knowledge.

“Yes, but there are several kinds,” said Phoena, growing eager now.

“There’s the—”

“Oh, Phoena, do look at your cup,” cried Faith, from the other end of the table, “you’ll upset your tea in another minute.”

But the warning came too late.

Carefulness at meals, or indeed at any other time, was unfortunately not dreamy Phoena’s strong point, and before Faith had finished speaking, the whole contents of her hitherto untasted cup had overflowed its borders and was trickling in a whitey brown streamlet down the table.

“There, there, my dear, never mind,” exclaimed kindly Mrs. Busson, “it’s the first cup of tea you’ve ever spilt in my house, and I do hope it won’t be the last, by a long way.”

And as Ruth set to work to repair the damage, Andrew profited by the diversion to ask for some lettuce for his guinea-pig, and thus change the slug subject. He felt he had gone far enough in that department.

CHAPTER IV.

“IN THE ROSY SUMMER WEATHER.”

THERE was something in its irregular rambling style of architecture that gave to Gaybrook Farm, as Di expressed it, a particularly “holiday-house” look.

Nobody quite knew how old it was, but the various additions to the original building, which had been evidently made at different intervals, suggested the handiwork of several generations, and seeing that, as Mrs. Busson was fond of saying, “Busson’s great grandfather had been born there, and that Busson himself was no chicken, the farm must have been standing, well over a hundred years at any rate.”

But though so strangely irregular, it was a very substantial pile of buildings.

The red, pan-tiled roof of the main portion seemed, as it were, to run up-hill, and from under this the first floor projected, supported by heavy black beams.

It was in this part of the house, in low ceilinged rooms, with little old casement windows, and long window panes, that Mrs. Busson had arranged to bestow her visitors.

For this end of the house, “the up-hill part,” as Hubert called it, comprised all the living rooms of the family. There was the large house place below, with the roomy parlours on either side, the best bedrooms above, and the attics another storey higher.

Beneath the lower roof of the building, which was thatched and much weather-worn, were all the various farmhouse offices.

Foremost amongst these was the kitchen. Oh! such a kitchen it was. Flanked by the store-room and larders, and a dairy a little further on, which opened out into a spacious back yard, and with the baking and brewing-houses, and the wood and the wash sheds, it formed a regular little quadrangle.

Over the kitchen was a long, low room, filled with linen-presses, and fragrant with lavender and dried rose-leaves, for Mrs. Busson held fast to old traditions in these matters of household economy; whilst almost adjoining was a huge apple-room, and overhead the vast cheese-loft.

Between the linen room and the apple store was another chamber door (if that door had never been there, this story would never have been written). To judge, however, from the cobwebs which hung like a thick grey mist about its cracks and hinges, that door must have been long, very long unopened.

“Now mind, you girls,” Mrs. Busson had cautioned her hand-maidens, before the children’s arrival, “whatever happens, you never let the little gentlemen and ladies go trying to get in there.”

Unanimously, the girls promised obedience.

But that same evening, directly after tea, their mistress reiterated her commands.

“Whatever you do, don’t drop a hint to Master Andrew of what’s in that room,” she said, “for I’ll be bound he’d be up to some mischief, and so, I suspect, would Miss Phoena too, if they only guessed.”

“Very good, ma’am,” said the trusty Nell (she was cheese-room maid), “chances are, if we manage well, they’ll never so much as notice the door. Young things are mostly for getting out of doors.”

And at starting, it seemed as if Nell was likely to prove a true prophet.

All through the next morning, in spite of the oppressive midsummer heat, the children were flitting about in all directions.

“Like so many sunbeams at play,” Mrs. Busson declared.

Early dawn had found Jack and Phil out in the hay-field, tossing the new hay with more energy than skill, and it had needed all Fay’s gentle persuasions to induce Hubert to attend to the most necessary details of his hurried toilette, before rushing out to join his brothers. As for Di, whose swiftness of foot, combined with her ruddy locks, had long ago earned her the title of “Scarlet Runner,” she too was up with the sun, or very nearly, and had found her way to the little stream which ran through the Crow-bell meadow, and was wading in its shallow waters in search of water-cress.

Little Marygold, her whole person, saving her head, concealed in a holland overall, was standing knee-deep in a tangle of sweet-briar, honeysuckles, climbing roses, and a score of sweet, old-fashioned blossoms which grew together to the left of the flower-garden, in a patch of rank disorder, under cover of which the “posy-border” melted into the orchard beyond, without making a too rude transition.

Marygold was supremely happy, searching the foxglove bells and the dew-brimmed cups of the lilies, in the fond hope of discovering some of those belated fairies, who, she firmly believed, took their night’s rest in these flowery shelters.

“There must be some somewhere,” she cried, in her clear, piping voice.

“Oh, Phoena, do come and help me to look for them.”

But though Phoena was not forthcoming, she was not far off.

For though she had left the house, intent on reaching a certain sainfoin field, whose brilliant blossoms gleamed bewitchingly in the early sunlight, her wanderings had been arrested after the first few yards. The sight of a wounded snail, crawling slowly, slowly even for a snail, along the ash-strewn path, which led from the back yard to the kitchen garden, had checked Phoena’s progress, who, wherever anything was sick or sorry, was a veritable sister of pity. Moreover, having lately heard about the snail’s marvellous faculty for mending its damaged shell, Phoena thought this was a favourable opportunity for seeing how this feat was performed. So, with the help of sticks and stones, she forthwith made it a hospital beneath the shade of a laurel bush. Converting her handkerchief into an awning above the sticks, Phoena conveyed her interesting patient into these specially prepared quarters, exhorting him to set to work at once on the repairing of his shell. She would gladly have foregone her breakfast for the pleasure of watching him, but she feared by so doing to draw public attention to her “anxious case.”

Accordingly, she reluctantly obeyed the summons of the loud breakfast bell, with the result, alas! that on her return, she discovered that the thankless snail, after the way of some vagrants, had decamped!

Out of the whole party, Andrew was the only “slug-a-bed,” and even he managed to be ready to go out by nine o’clock, having secured Faith’s attendance on himself as bearer of his butterfly net and sundry other things necessary to the success of his expedition.

“I say,” cried Phil, catching sight of the net, “can’t you leave those poor beggars in peace for to-day at least?”

“Yes,” chimed in Jack, “and I call it awful hard lines on Fay; I bet she doesn’t want to go swinking after you all this hot morning. As it is, she’s had