CHAPTER VIII

In a few days they are back again in Brook Street, George, Mabel and
Philippa. It is the beginning of September and anything more dreary and
deserted than the parks could not be imagined. No one is in London. Who
would be when the seaside is everything delightful and the moors are
covered with heather and grouse? Philippa shudders as she looks out of
her bedroom window into the mews, even that is deserted, a canary in a
very small cage and a lean cat are the only living creatures to be
seen.

'Well,' she says, 'it might almost be the city of the dead ...' here her
meditations are interrupted by Teddy, who rushes in and flings his arms
round her neck. 'How brown you are,' she exclaims.

'Yes, ain't I,' he answers. 'Me and Marie have been in the Square most
of the days and it has been so hot, have you enjoyed yourself?'

'Yes, thank you,' replies Philippa.

'I don't think you have,' says Teddy, who is as sharp as a needle,
'because, well, you don't look very happy now.'

'That is just it perhaps, I am so sorry it is over.'

'Oh,' and Teddy goes to the window only half convinced, 'there's that
canary,' he says, 'I watch him often and often, and never can see
nobody feeding it. I asked Marie to let me go and see if it had got some
seed; but she was cross and said I wasn't to--oh, Aunt Lippa, isn't it