"The young devil," observed Nicholas, laying down his Punch. "He ought to be brought home and given a sound hiding!"
For once the gentle Ernest agreed. "He ought indeed. I've worried myself ill over that boy."
"Who is the letter from?" asked Nicholas.
"Alayne. Keep still and I will read it to you." Impressively she read the letter aloud.
"I'm the only one she sent a message to," cried Wakefield, "excepting Renny, and his isn't a nice one. She says she won't tell him where Finch is, doesn't she?"
"Hush," said Augusta. "We don't wish to hear any of your chatter at a moment like this."
"Alayne," asserted Nicholas, "put ideas in that boy's head from the very first. It was she, you'll remember, Renny, who persuaded you to give him music lessons."
"You play the piano yourself," retorted his sister, tartly.
Nicholas puffed at his pipe imperturbably. "I do. But I don't lose my head over music. I could never become hag-ridden by art. Finch was not sane about it, and it did him no end of harm."
Renny said: "To think of his having the guts to go to New York alone! He must have saved all the money he made from that fool orchestra."
"The question is," said his aunt, "what is to be done? It is shocking to think of Finch exposed to the temptations of that terrible city."
"He must be brought back at once!" exclaimed Ernest, dropping a bead in his agitation.
So long as he had been faithful to his task, handling the honey-coloured spheres with delicacy and precision, old Mrs. Whiteoak had chosen to pay no heed to the conversation, but now she raised her massive head in its beribboned cap and threw a piercing glance into the faces about her.
"What's the to-do?" she demanded.
They looked at each other. Had they better tell her?
The look did not escape her. She rapped with her
