Chair, Don and I will be the horses, and we will go down Coombe Lane at
a gallop," said Billykins, with a festive prance. "That will be
perfectly lovely, only Rupert will have to hold me tightly or I shall be
tossed out at the turn, and I might damage my nose again," replied
Ducky, with a gleeful chuckle. By this time they had reached Beechleigh,
and turning short across the green by the pond they tramped in at the
gate of the funny little house where their great-aunt, Miss Judith
Webber, had lived and died, and which was the only home they had known
since Ducky was a tiny babe. Mrs. Puffin, a lean little widow of mouldy
aspect, opened the door to let them in and exclaimed loudly to see how
damp they were. "Now you will all be catching colds, and I shall have to
nurse you," she said in a woebegone tone, as she felt them all round.
"If you must go out in the wet in this fashion, why can't you take
umbrellas?" "Because we haven't got them," answered Nealie, with a
laugh. She mostly laughed about their limitations, because it made them
just a little easier to bear. "The little boys had the last umbrella
that we possess to play at Bedouin tents with on Tuesday, and they had a
sad accident and broke three of its ribs, poor thing. But we shall not
catch cold, Mrs. Puffin, because we are all going straight to bed." "But
I am hungry," protested Billykins. "I know, and so am I; but we will all
have a big piece of seed cake when we get into bed, and go to sleep to
dream of big bowls of steaming porridge with brown sugar on the top,"
said Nealie; and the vision proved so alluring that all seven trooped up
the dark stairs
