"If you're _sure_ that play-wax will fix up my lace-ends so that Mums won't worry, we'll use the penny on anything you like," she said.
Her words produced quite a sensation. Gavin patted her violently on the back; Kirsty jumped three times into the air like a young chamois, with a great display of long, thin, scratched legs--no one in those parts ever saw anything like the way those Graham children grew!--and Bingo hugged her ecstatically before burrowing in the pocket of his tiny knickers for a small and grubby piece of yellow play-wax.
They all sat down on the high heathery moor to mend the laces there and then. "Lots of time," Gavin pronounced, consulting the gold hunting-watch which Father had said his eldest boy was to have if he never came back. "The postman never gets to Crumach till four, and it's not three."
"But there may be soldiers come by the south train," suggested Bingo. "We'll want some time to see them."
"Heaps of time," declared Gavin, pinching bits off the lump of play-wax. "Only three miles from here to Crumach, and we can see the soldiers after we've done Mums' shopping and got the post, if we don't before."
Joey looked up from her refractory laces, shaking her thick fair hair out of her eyes.
"But _the_ letter might have come by the post, Gav. If it has, Mums will want to know at once, won't she?"
"'Course. I'd forgotten that letter might have come," Gavin answered more soberly. "There, leave that lace to dry hard, old girl, and you'll have a topping tag. Did the minister expect it so soon?"
"Will it come if you've failed to get the scholarship?" Kirsty asked.
Joey considered. "I don't know, but I shouldn't think they would write to everybody to tell them that they'd failed. Mr. Craigie said there were seven hundred and eighty-two candidates. Just think of all the stamps!"
The family did think, with a gasp. When they thought at all about money, it was as a thing which must be kept for boots and bread and margarine--never as a thing that you could squander recklessly on luxuries like stamps.
"No, I shouldn't think there would be a letter if you've failed," Ronnie agreed sadly. He had a right to be serious, for he was, after Joey, the person most immediately concerned with the all-important letter, which it was remotely possible that the postman might bring to Crumach to-day.