"You know where Ben and his mother are?" he said to Robin after a few minutes.
"Yes," Robin answered.
"Then take Meg and go to them for a while. Mrs. Jennings wants to stay here about an hour more, and I want to walk round with her. In an hour come back to the entrance here, and I will meet you."
Meg and Robin went away as he told them. It was in one sense rather a relief.
"I wonder what she'll say to him?" said Meg.
"There's no knowing," Robin answered. "But whatever it is he will make it all right. He's one of those who have found out that human beings can do things if they try hard enough. He was as lonely and poor as we are when he was twelve. He told me so."
What Aunt Matilda said was very matter of fact.
"I must say," she said as the children walked off, "you seem to have been pretty good to them."
"They've been pretty good to me," said John Holt.
"They've been pretty good for me though they're not old enough to know it."
"They're older than their age," said Aunt Matilda.
"If they'd been like other children, the Lord knows what I should have done with them. They've been no trouble in particular."
