Gracefully asprawl on the ottoman, in an attitude of almost
exaggerated repose, was the boy of the woods. He was drier than
when Van Cheele had last seen him, but no other alteration was
noticeable in his toilet.
"How dare you come here?" asked Van Cheele furiously.
"You told me I was not to stay in the woods," said the boy calmly.
"But not to come here. Supposing my aunt should see you!"
And with a view to minimising that catastrophe, Van Cheele hastily
obscured as much of his unwelcome guest as possible under the folds
of a Morning Post. At that moment his aunt entered the room.
"This is a poor boy who has lost his way--and lost his memory. He
doesn't know who he is or where he comes from," explained Van Cheele
desperately, glancing apprehensively at the waif's face to see
whether he was going to add inconvenient candour to his other savage
propensities.
Miss Van Cheele was enormously interested.
"Perhaps his underlinen is marked," she suggested.
"He seems to have lost most of that, too," said Van Cheele, making
frantic little grabs at the Morning Post to keep it in its place.
A naked homeless child appealed to Miss Van Cheele as warmly as a
stray kitten or derelict puppy would have done.
"We must do all we can for him," she decided, and in a very short
time a messenger, dispatched to the rectory, where a page-boy was
kept, had returned with a suit of pantry clothes, and the necessary
accessories of shirt, shoes, collar, etc.
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