His vacations, as has been said, were usually spent with Sir Giles either in the British Isles or on the Continent, but there was one Easter holiday--the second he spent in England--when he was, to quote a phrase of Aunt Miriam's, thrown on the parish. The Fletchers were booked to spend the holiday in a Mediterranean cruise on the yacht of a nautical duke, who was so nautical and so much of a duke that to be asked to cruise with him was not merely an Engagement; it was an Experience. In any case, there could be no question of taking Harry, and Lady Fletcher was in perplexity about what to do with him till Sir Giles suggested, "Why don't we send him to Mildred?" So to Mildred Harry went, and spent an important, if not a wildly exciting, month.
Mildred was Sir Giles' only sister, Lady Archibald Carson. She lived in a little house in the Surrey hills, and though the land that went with it was restricted, it was fertile and its mistress went in as heavily as her means would allow for herbaceous borders and rock gardens and Japanese effects. Her two children, both girls, lived there with her. Her husband, Lord Archibald, was also, in a sense, living with her, but the verdant domesticity of the Surrey hills had no charm for him and he spent practically all of his time in London and other busy haunts of men, or even more busy haunts of women. He was a younger son of a long line of marquises who for their combination of breeding and profligacy probably had no match in the British peerage. Within five years of his marriage he had with the greatest casualness in the world run through his own patrimony and all he could lay his hands on of his wife's. Having bullied and wheedled all that he could out of her he now consistently let her alone and depended for his income on what he could bully and wheedle out of his brother, the eleventh marquis, who was known as a greater rake than Lord Archibald merely because he had greater facilities for rakishness at his command.
Lady Archibald was a tall, light-haired, pale-eyed woman with a tired face and a gentle manner. She had no interests in life beyond her children and her garden, but she had a kind heart and welcomed Harry cordially on his arrival at the little house in Surrey. He had seen her once before at the Fletchers' in London, but he had never seen her children. It was, therefore, with a rather keen sense of curiosity that he walked through the house into the garden, where he was told that Beatrice and Jane were to be found. He saw them across the croquet lawn immediately, and he underwent a mild shock of disappointment on seeing, as he could, at a glance, that they were just as long of limb, just as straight of hair and just as angular in build as most English girls of their age.