him. And Daddy never quite trusted that man.”
“Couldn’t we explain all that to someone?”
“Nobody will listen,” said Mother, very bitterly, “nobody at all. Do you suppose I’ve not tried everything? No, my dearest, there’s nothing to be done. All we can do, you and I and Daddy, is to be brave, and patient, and—” she spoke very softly—“to pray, Bobbie, dear.”
“Mother, you’ve got very thin,” said Bobbie, abruptly.
“A little, perhaps.”
“And oh,” said Bobbie, “I do think you’re the bravest person in the world as well as the nicest!”
“We won’t talk of all this any more, will we, dear?” said Mother; “we must bear it and be brave. And, darling, try not to think of it. Try to be cheerful, and to amuse yourself and the others. It’s much easier for me if you can be a little bit happy and enjoy things. Wash your poor little round face, and let’s go out into the garden for a bit.”
The other two were very gentle and kind to Bobbie. And they did not ask her what was the matter. This was Peter’s idea, and he had drilled Phyllis, who would have asked a hundred questions if she had been left to herself.
A week later Bobbie managed to get away alone. And once more she wrote a letter. And once more it was to the old gentleman.
“My dear Friend,” she said, “you see what is in this paper. It is not true. Father never did it. Mother says someone put the papers in Father’s desk, and she says the man under him that got Father’s place afterwards was jealous of Father, and Father suspected him a long time. But nobody listens to a word she says, but you are so good and clever, and you found out about the Russian gentleman’s wife directly. Can’t you find out who did the treason because he wasn’t Father upon my honour; he is an Englishman and uncapable to do such things, and then they would let Father out of prison. It is dreadful, and Mother is getting so thin. She told us once to pray for all prisoners and captives. I see now. Oh, do help me—there is only just Mother and me know, and we can’t do anything. Peter and Phil don’t know. I’ll pray for you twice every day as long as I live if you’ll only try—just try to find out. Think if it was your Daddy, what you would feel. Oh, do, do, do help me. With love—
“I remain Your affectionately little friend—
“Roberta.
“P.S. Mother would send her kind regards if she knew I am writing—but it is no use telling her I am, in case you can’t do anything. But I know you will. Bobbie with best love.”
She cut the account of her Father’s trial out of the newspaper with Mother’s big cutting-out scissors, and put it in the envelope with her letter.
Then she took it down to the station, going out the back way and round by the road, so that the others should not see her and offer to come with her, and she gave the letter to the Station Master to give to the old gentleman next morning.
“Where have you been?” shouted Peter, from the top of the yard wall where he and Phyllis were.
“To the station, of course,” said Bobbie; “give us a hand, Pete.”
She set her foot on the lock of the yard door. Peter reached down a hand.
“What on earth?” she asked as she reached the wall-top—for Phyllis and Peter were very muddy. A lump of wet clay lay between them on the wall, they had each a slip of slate in a very dirty hand, and behind Peter, out of the reach of accidents, were several strange rounded objects rather like very fat sausages, hollow, but closed up at one end.
“It’s nests,” said Peter, “swallows’ nests. We’re going to dry them in the oven and hang them up with string under the eaves of the coach-house.”
“Yes,” said Phyllis; “and then we’re going to save up all the wool and hair we can get, and in the spring we’ll line them, and then how pleased the swallows will be!”
“I’ve often thought people don’t do nearly enough for dumb animals,” said Peter with an air of virtue. “I do think people might have thought of making nests for poor little swallows before this.”
“Oh,” said Bobbie, vaguely, “if everybody thought of everything, there’d be nothing left for anybody else to think about.”
“Look at the nests—aren’t they pretty?” said Phyllis, reaching across Peter to grasp a nest.
“Look out, Phil, you goat,” said her brother. But it was too late; her strong little fingers had crushed the nest.
“There now,” said Peter.
“Never mind,” said Bobbie.
“It is one of my own,” said Phyllis, “so you needn’t jaw, Peter. Yes, we’ve put our initial names on the ones we’ve done, so that the swallows will know who they’ve got to be so grateful to and fond of.”
“Swallows can’t read, silly,” said Peter.
“Silly yourself,” retorted Phyllis; “how do you know?”
“Who thought of making the nests, anyhow?” shouted Peter.
“I did,” screamed Phyllis.
“Nya,” rejoined Peter, “you only thought of making hay ones and sticking them in the ivy for the sparrows, and they’d have been sopping long before egg-laying time. It was me said clay and swallows.”
“I don’t care what you said.”
“Look,” said Bobbie, “I’ve made the nest all right again. Give me the bit of stick to mark your initial name on it. But how can you? Your letter and Peter’s are the same. P. for Peter, P. for Phyllis.”
“I put F. for Phyllis,” said the child of that name. “That’s how it sounds. The swallows wouldn’t spell Phyllis with a P., I’m certain-sure.”
“They can’t spell at all,” Peter was still insisting.
“Then why do you see them always on Christmas cards and valentines with letters round their necks? How would they know where to go if they couldn’t read?”
“That’s only in pictures. You never saw one really with letters round its neck.”
“Well, I have a pigeon, then; at least Daddy told me they did. Only it was under their wings and not round their necks, but it comes to the same thing, and—”
“I say,” interrupted Bobbie, “there’s to be a paperchase tomorrow.”
“Who?” Peter asked.
“Grammar School. Perks thinks the hare will go along by the line at first. We might go along the cutting. You can see a long way from there.”
The paperchase was found to be a more amusing subject of conversation than the reading powers of swallows. Bobbie had hoped it might be. And next morning Mother let them take their lunch and go out for the day to see the paperchase.
“If we go to the cutting,” said Peter,
