What was a school blazer and twenty runs at cricket, compared with the
glory of having a mother like that?

But if tea was not much fun, after tea was worse.

They were told to run and play in the garden; and obediently they ran
out, dog and all. But what _could_ you play at with a superior being who
had made twenty runs not out, in a House Match--whatever that might be?
They showed him their ring-doves and their rabbits; but he didn't even
pretend to be interested, though Tara did her best, because it was she
who had brought this infliction on Roy.

"How about the summer-house?" she suggested, hopefully. For the
summer-house locker contained an assortment of old tennis-bats, mallets
and balls, that might prove more stimulating than rabbits and doves. Roy
offered no objection; so they straggled across a corner of the lawn to a
narrower strip behind the tall yew hedge.

The grown-ups were gathered under the twin beeches; and away at the far
end of the lawn Roy's mother and Tara's mother were strolling up and
down in the sun.

Again Roy noticed how Joe Bradley stared: and as they rounded the corner
of the hedge he remarked suddenly "I say! There's that swagger ayah of
yours walking with Lady Despard. She's jolly smart, for an ayah. Did you
bring her from India? You never said you'd been there."

Roy started and went hot all over. "Well, I _have_--just on a visit. And
she's _not_ an ayah. She's my Mummy!"