Ah Kew let them in with a wise smile and several nods
of his head, and soon both Dick and Grizzel were sleeping
as soundly as the other four Time-travellers.
“It is a green diamond,” Mr. Fraser pronounced
next morning, “but what its value is we cannot
tell until it is cut and polished. Then it will
belong to Grizzel, to have and to hold till death do
them part. If you really have found a diamond-mine,
youngsters, something will have to be done about shares.
Who finds keeps, you know. We’ll have the
place properly surveyed and see what happens.
But don’t begin counting your chickens too soon—these
Australian diamond-mines are tricksy things; you
never know how they are going to pan out. Wait
a bit before you plan what to do with your fortune.”
Mollie, Dick, and Jerry suddenly felt very sad as
they remembered that they were out of this stroke
of luck. Whatever happened, Fortune was not preparing
to smile on them, at least not in a way that
would be of any immediate practical use to them when
they got back to London. And a fortune apiece
would have come in so very handy just now—just
forty years hence, that is. The boys made up
their minds to investigate this matter of fortunes
in the colonies directly they got home.
Hugh tossed up his hat and caught it again: “We’ll
be jolly rich,” he cried. “The Mater
will get her trip home, and the Pater needn’t
worry about bills and subscription lists any more,
and I’ll get that camera—oh, ‘hard
times, hard times, come again no more!’”
* * * *
*
Mollie sat up. The clock was still ticking minutes
into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and months
and years.
“Oh dear,” she said, “I do wonder—”
“Wonder what, my Molliekins?” asked Aunt
Mary, preceding Hester with the tea-tray.
“I wonder,” Mollie repeated, and then
began to laugh. “I don’t suppose
you ever bit like red-hot nippers, did you, Aunt Mary?”
The Grape-Gatherers or Who was Mr. Smith?
Aunt Mary had gone up to London to do some shopping,
and when Mollie came downstairs next morning she found
Grannie installed in the drawing-room, instead of
in the morning-room as usual, with another old lady
who had come to spend the day.
“Mrs. Pell and I were at school together,”
she explained, as she introduced her grandchild, “and
that was not yesterday,” she added, as she settled
Mollie in an easy-chair with the lame foot up on a
cushioned frame. “My dear husband used this
when he had gout,” she continued, tucking a
warm shawl round Mollie’s bandages and large
bedroom slipper. “It was made in the village
under his own directions, and is most ingeniously
constructed. Poor, dear Richard was such an active
man; he could not endure to lie on a sofa, and I had
the greatest difficulty in keeping him to his bed even
when his attacks were severe.”
