He left the man standing where they had been talking, and hurried round the edge of the pond. There was something peculiarly appealing to him in the idea of this cottage. How pleasant it would be, he thought, when he and his mother were living together there some five years hence, if he happened to say to her, as he came in to tea from his Sunday walk, with a bunch of primroses in his hand, “I came past Lenty Pond today, Mother, where I first heard about the chance of our settling here!”

He found Jason sitting on the roots of the poplar, leaning his back against the tree-trunk and holding the tails of his overcoat stretched tightly over his knees, so that he should be entirely concealed from view.

“That man hasn’t gone,” was his greeting to Wolf. “He’s standing there still.”

“I know he is, Otter. He’s brought a telegram for me. My mother’s coming down tonight. Monk says he doesn’t see any reason why she and I shouldn’t take rooms in his cottage.”