“You needn’t tell me, I know what it is!” said Anne, with a laugh. “You’re glad that Timmy won’t have anything to do with Henry!”

“With Henrietta,” corrected George. She grinned suddenly. “Yes, old Timmy’s got some sense. He just can’t stick her. Here, Timmy boy, leave those rabbit-holes alone and come and lie down for a bit. You’ve run for miles this morning when we took the horses out, and you’ve snuffled down about a hundred rabbit-holes. Come and be peaceful.”

Timmy left his latest rabbit-hole reluctantly and came to flop down beside Anne and George. He gave George a hearty lick and she patted him.

“We’re just saying, Timmy, how sensible you are not to make friends with that awful Henrietta,” said George. She stopped suddenly at a sharp nudge from Anne. A shadow fell across them as someone came round the haystack.

It was Henrietta. By the annoyed look on her face it was clear that she had heard George’s remark. She held out an orange envelope to George.

“A telegram for you, Georgina,” she said, stiffly. “I thought I’d better bring it in case it was important.”

“Oh, thanks, Henrietta,” said George, and took the telegram. She tore it open, read it and groaned.

“Look at that!” she said to Anne and passed it to her. “It’s from Mother.”

Anne took the telegram and read it. “Please stay another week. Your father is not well. Love from Mother.”

“What bad luck!” said George, a familiar scowl on her face. “Just when I thought we’d be going home in a day or two, and the boys would join us at Kirrin. Now we’ll be stuck here by ourselves for ages! What’s the matter with Father? I bet he’s only got a headache or something, and doesn’t want us stamping about in and out of the house and making a noise.”

“We could go to my home,” said Anne. “That’s if you don’t mind its being a bit upside down because of the decorating we’re having done.”

“No. I know you want to stay here with the horses,” said George. ‘Anyway your father and mother are abroad, we’d only be in the way. Blow, blow, blow!

Now we’ll have to do without the boys for another week. They’ll stay on in camp, of course.’

Captain Johnson said yes, certainly the two girls could stay on. It was possible that they might have to do a bit of camping out if one or two extra children came, but they wouldn’t mind that, would they?

“Not a bit,” said George. “Actually we’d rather like to be on our own, Anne and I. We’ve got Timmy, you see. So long as we could come in to meals and do a few jobs for you, we’d love to go off on our own.”

Anne smiled to herself. What George really meant was that she wanted to see as little of Henrietta as possible! Still, it would be fun to camp out if the weather was fine. They could easily borrow a tent from Captain Johnson.