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[Illustration: YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME]
The Happy Adventurers
To Alastair and Margaret
"I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincingyou How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in thebuilding trade."—Kipling.
How it Began
"Dear, dear!" said Grannie, "woes cluster, as my mother used to say."
"Let us hope that this is the last woe, and that now the luck willturn," said Aunt Mary.
Mollie did not say anything. She had smiled the Guides' smile valiantlythrough the worst of her misfortunes, but now she was so tired that shefelt nothing short of a hammer and two tacks could fasten that smile onto her face any longer. So she closed her eyes and lay back on thecushions, feeling that Fate had done its worst and that no more blowswere possible in the immediate future.
Grannie fetched an eiderdown and tucked it cosily round the patient,who looked pale and chilly even on this fine warm day in June, whileAunt Mary tidied away the remains of lotions and bandages left by thedoctor.
"The best thing now will be a little sleep," said Grannie, looking downwith kind old eyes at her granddaughter, "a little quiet sleep and thena nice tea, with the first strawberries from the garden. I saw quite anumber of red ones this morning, and Susan shall give us some cream."
Mollie opened her eyes again and tried to look pleased, but even thethought of strawberries and cream could not make her feel really happyin her heart; for one thing, she still felt rather sick.
"That will be lovely," she said, as gratefully as she could, "and now Ithink I will try to go to sleep, and perhaps forget things for alittle while—" and, in spite of all her efforts, a few tears insistedupon rolling down her cheeks as she thought of home, and Mother'sdisappointment, and the dull time that lay before her.
Mollie Gordon's home was in London, in the somewhat dull district ofNorth Kensington, where her father, Dr. Gordon, had a large but notparticularly lucrative practice, and her mother cheerfully made thebest of things from Monday morning till Sunday night. There were fivechildren: Mollie and her twin brother Dick; Jean, Billy, and Bob. Theylived in a large, ugly house, one of a long row of ugly houses in adull gardenless street, where the sidewalks were paved, and the planetrees