I didn’t want to appear ungrateful, so I only murmured that I could see about those later on, and I drew a little closer to him and squeezed his arm for joy at seeing him again, while the Gidger gazed, entranced, out of the window at the traffic.
’Ross,’ I said, ’how on earth does Sam always manage it?’
’I dunno,’ said Ross, staring through the glass at Sam’s impassive back. ’It’s extraordinary. When I got this bullet in my arm he came up a moment after, said he’d bust his knee. Sometimes I think he must have some arrangement with the d——’
’Just so,’ said Ross, and giggled as he used to do when I reproved him.
But, all the same, it is a funny thing that Sam always has managed to get with Ross, from the time he turned up as the school boot-boy, to the day he appeared in my brother’s dug-out with a can and said, ’Hot water, sir,’ in just the same old way.
When I arrived at the hotel the ’pretty nursemaid’ turned out to be my darling Nannie.
’When you feel you can stop kissing them both, Meg would like your references.’
’References given _and_ required,’ laughed Nannie.
’Then the deal’s off. Meg’s past won’t bear looking into.’
Ross had just crammed my rooms with flowers and the air was full of scent. He said Michael told him ’heaps of lilies.’ Did he remember that the scent of those is love? I do think, however, he might have ordered the removal of the earwigs.
I was so tired that I came upstairs directly after dinner. The Gidger was already fast asleep.
’Pretty lamb,’ said Nannie, just as she always used to do.
So like the gardener’s cat in Punch, I felt that we could
’Sit among the greenhouse flowers And sleep for hours and hours and hours.’
Just before I sailed I got a mail from daddy. He was about to start upon a journey to some scattered mission stations ’to confirm the churches,’ and after that he said ’perhaps I shall come home.’ Oh, won’t it be too topping if he does. He was very excited, too, over the two new missionaries who had come out to the only healthy station. He writes:—
’They’re really quite nice, Meg, the Reverend Mister has a heart of gold. She’s solid gold right through, only you know, little ’un, those very gold people do have funny clothes and shoes sometimes. I’m afraid she’s rather inclined to think that curly hair is "wicked." I don’t know what she’d say to yours, Meg, but then the children of the clergy always go quickest to the dogs; you’ve said that heaps of times, so of course it must be right.’