“But suppose they really _do_ see that old man?” objected Gretta, still undecided as to which way duty was really calling. “They’ll be all alone.”
“Well, _you_ couldn’t help,” insisted Josy unflatteringly. “Depend upon it, Margot’s all right, and it’s awfully likely that she’ll meet her mother on the way, I should think; you said she was coming in her car, didn’t you?”
“Yes, she is,” answered Gretta, greatly comforted by this suggestion. “And I should think they’re bound to meet. Well,” she half turned back as she spoke, “if I can’t be any good it’s no use going; she’s got Stella’s boy, of course, and he’ll be much more use than I could. Oh, I _do_ hope they’ll meet auntie.”
“They’re sure to,” declared Josy confidently. “And then she’ll take Margot on in her car, I expect, and Jim’ll come back to wait for Stella. I _don’t_ think we need tell Miss Read, do you?”
“Oh, that’s all very well,” announced Stella in a grumbling tone. “And suppose Jim _doesn’t_ come back? What about _me_? For all I know dad’ll be furious with me for letting the pony have the extra journey, and I don’t see why I should be blamed. It’s not the _first_ time I’ve got into trouble over Margot, and I’m going to ask Miss Read what to do; it’s only sensible.”
“Well, you may be ‘sensible’ about it,” remarked Josy witheringly, “but you’re being jolly selfish as well! If you don’t, perhaps Margot and Sybil will get back in about half an hour, and no one will ever know anything about it. But, if you do----”
But Stella had already departed on her errand, which was to prove a lengthy and fruitless one, for, when she returned, the match was nearly over, and the house-mistress had not been found.
“She may have been in the mistress’s room, of course,” she concluded, after an account of her adventures; “but we’re not allowed in there, so I didn’t----”
“And that Jim of yours has been searching for you all round the field like a lost puppy, while you’ve been gone,” replied Josy, still feeling rather stand-offish, as she would have expressed it, on account of Stella’s “tell-tale ways!” “He’s gone back now; he wanted to ask you----”
At that instant two figures were seen approaching the little group from the two different school entrances. One was Jim, returning breathless and excited--a very different youth in appearance from the sulky, sheepish yokel who had, after scouring the playground, returned to where the rector’s trap had originally stood. Stella started towards him at a run, just as Gretta turned to fly joyfully in the direction of the second new-comer, Mrs. Fleming herself, who had evidently singled out her niece in spite of the crowd, and was bearing down upon her.