"Right you are! Please yourself and you'll please me! Though I should
have thought the run to Chatcombe----"

Ingred sprang to her feet, dropping the puppy unceremoniously.

"You don't mean to say Egbert's finished mending the motor bike? You
abominable boy! Why couldn't you tell me so before?"

"You never gave me the chance--just said off-hand you wouldn't go
anywhere. Yes, the engine's running like a daisy, and the sidecar's on,
and Egbert's fussing to be off. If you really change your mind and want
to go----"

But by this time Ingred was round the corner of the house; so, shaking a
philosophic head at the ways of girls in general, her brother gathered a
gooseberry or two en route, and followed her in the direction of the
stable-yard.

The Saxons were spending their summer holidays at a farm near the
seaside, and for the first time in four long years the whole family was
reunited. Mr. Saxon, Egbert, and Athelstane had only just been
demobilized, and had hardly yet settled down to civilian life. They had
joined the rest of the party at Lynstones before returning to their
native town of Grovebury. The six weeks by the sea seemed a kind of
oasis between the anxious period of the war that was past and gone, and
the new epoch that stretched ahead in the future. To Ingred they were
halcyon days. To have her father and brothers safely back, and for the
family to be together in the midst of such beautiful scenery, was
sufficient for utter enjoyment. She did not wish her mind to venture