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“There isn’t a house in the place I’d eat a bun in! As for sitting down to eggs and bacon in one of those stuffy holes, I’d rather starve. Oh, I’m hot!” and a girl flopped down on the big log beside the wall.

“While as for sleeping in one, I suppose you’d rather die,” her companion suggested, standing beside her and looking up and down the road.

“Or lie in a ditch. We’d be warm enough in these awful coats. Why did you insist on bringing them, Rena?”

“How could I tell Sussex would be as hot as Egypt?” Rena asked mildly. “It was chilly enough when we left Sheffield. You didn’t grumble at your coat at six o’clock this morning. You’re hungry, my dear; we must find that bun, even if we have to eat it standing at a cottage door. Surely there’s some tea-place in the village! I know I saw a board saying ‘Teas.’ Was it at that inn, where we left the bus?”

“I don’t know where it was, but I want tea, a big tea, and eggs and bacon with it,” the second girl moaned. “We’ve walked miles looking for tea, and we’re back where we started, and the wretched place seems tea-less.”

“I want a wash,” Rena announced. “And I mean to have one. I’m going to look for it.”

“Wash! You’ll have to be content with the village pump.”

“Possibly. It would cheer me up, if there’s nothing better. But there’s an inn somewhere; it may have a bathroom.”

“Optimist! A tap in the garden!”

Rena laughed. “Where was that board saying ‘Teas Provided’? I know I saw it somewhere.”

“What’s that?” cried the other girl, and sprang to her feet. “Something went down my neck!”

“My—only—aunt!” whispered Rena, and they both stood staring.

Above them in the whitewashed wall was a big window. As they looked this was opened from within, and through it was pushed a board, on which were printed big white letters. It waved in the air, then dropped against the wall, evidently hanging from a nail inside the house.

Rena read the wording breathlessly:

For one moment the exhausted girls looked at one another. Then Rena burst out:

“Come and investigate! It must have heard us! It’s the very place I’ve been dying for! Oh, Lisabel, it’s It! Come on, my child!”

“It threw plaster down my neck when it opened that window,” Lisabel grumbled. “Where’s the door?”

Within the whitewashed wall, in a long open shed or loggia, a girl stood on a round table listening to their comments, her face alight with laughter. Tall and fair, with yellow hair coiled in big plaits over her ears, and blue eyes full of amusement, she wore a deep blue smock with big pockets. Jumping off the heavy table with a leap as graceful as a cat’s, she raced across the paved forecourt to the cottage and upstairs to a bedroom that was all blue and grey.

Leaning out of the lattice window under the thatch, she hung a square pictured sign from a projecting bar, a green board with a red rose painted on one side and a white rose on the other. While Rena was still hunting in the lane for a gate, the girl ran downstairs and into the second cottage under her roof, and from its upper window hung another sign, the sign of The Squirrel House, with brown squirrels painted on a white ground.

As she hung it from its hooks on the bar, the voices came to her again.

“Here, Lisabel, round the corner. Oh, it is It—the very place!”

“I must find out what that queer name is before I’m much older, even if it means cooking eggs and bacon when I’m fearfully busy,” said the girl in the blue smock, as she leaned on the sill above the Squirrel sign and gazed down at her guests, keeping behind the chintz curtain so that she could not be seen.

The hungry travellers were sturdy girls with deeply tanned faces, as if they lived much in the open air. They wore heavy leather coats, which looked almost like uniform of some sort, with soft leather hats to match, and each had a rucksac on her back. The coats and hats were brown, but the fair girl who led the way wore a jumper and skirt underneath of a pretty shade of amethyst, while the second girl, whose bobbed head under her brown hat showed flaming red, wore green. The fair girl was bobbed also, with a mass of wind-blown yellow curls, her hat swinging in her hand.

“I wonder which is ‘Rena’ and which is the one with the queer name?” pondered the girl above the Squirrel sign. “I shall soon know. They aren’t shy.”

The red-haired girl flung her rucksac on one of the low wicker tables and collapsed into a wicker arm-chair. “I don’t believe the place is open. There’s nobody about, and there’s no sign of teas. You’d better investigate, Rena; it was just like you to walk in and take possession.”

“I like that!” Rena cried. “Who’s taking possession? You seem to have made yourself quite at home! I’m sure it’s open; that board didn’t dangle invitingly over our heads of its own accord. Somebody heard us say we wanted tea, and took pity on us. There are the squirrels over the porch; and there’s a rose over the other door. I believe it’s two houses. The board said something about a shop, as well as ‘Teas,’ didn’t it?”

“I don’t know.” Lisabel fanned herself with her green scarf. “I only know it said ‘Teas,’ and you bolted like a donkey after a carrot.”

Rena laughed, and looked round the paved yard. “It could be pretty, but the whole place is frightfully neglected. I’d like to have a go at those borders.” She scanned the flower-beds with a professional eye. “It’s so overgrown; looks as if it hadn’t been touched for a month. And that garden across the wall is awful.”

She dropped her rucksac on a chair, and wandered across the court to look over a low wall into the front garden of the second cottage, where daffodils and hyacinths were struggling to keep their heads above a fine crop of healthy weeds.

“The Rose people seem to be away from home,” she said. “They’ll have their hands full when they come back. I’d like to prune those roses.”

“Haven’t we taken on a big enough job, up at the house?” Lisabel grumbled. “You can’t prune every neglected rose you see.”

“I always want to; they look so sad, wasting their strength. I hate to see those big red shoots and know they’ll all have to come off. I wonder if there is anybody at home?” and she surveyed the cottages again. “That board can’t have shot out of the window by accident, just at the right moment! It’s a jolly place; much the nicest we’ve seen.”

“They evidently haven’t noticed us,” Lisabel remarked. “Better knock and ask if there’s a bathroom.”

Rena laughed, and went towards the door under the Squirrel sign.

The curtain of the upper window was drawn back, and the girl of the cottage hung over the window-sill.

“I say, you know!” she began. “We aren’t really open for business—not till next week.”

Rena stepped back from the doorway and looked up at her. “But you’re open to us, aren’t you? That’s what your board meant, I’m sure. We’re famishing, and fainting, and filthy, with heat and hunger and hard work. Won’t you take pity on us?”

“I don’t know that I can. I promised not to begin business till I had help, and they don’t come home till Saturday. And anyway, I’m not a Squirrel lady; I’m the Rose Craft-Shop. I might sell you a length of handwoven silk, or a scarf or a table-runner, or some hand-thrown pottery, or a carved pig or squirrel. But tea—and eggs and bacon! Those aren’t my job. And I’m all alone here, Romeo.”

Rena flung off her big coat, tossing it and her hat on the seat below the Squirrel windows. She rolled up the sleeves of her amethyst jumper, and held out strong brown hands.

“You aren’t all alone, Juliet. You have one hefty willing assistant; in fact, two. I’ll boost Liza out of that chair, if you say the word, and we’ll carry trays, or cut bread and butter, or fry the bacon, or go out to look for eggs. Only say you’ll give us tea, and a wash! I’m in love with this place. I’ll prune your roses, if you’ll give me tea.”

“Do you know anything about roses?” the Rose girl asked, dropping her mocking tone and speaking eagerly. “I really want them done awfully badly, but I can’t find a good man, and they’re rather special roses.”

“I know; I saw the names. They come from good people. Are they just put in?” Rena forgot her own needs in her interest in the plight of the rose-trees.

“Last November. They were given to me by very special friends, and I want them to do well. But I’ve been abroad for a month, and I only came home a week ago. There hasn’t been time to see to the garden yet.”

“I said it looked as if you’d been away for a month. Oh, do let me do those roses, while you do the tea!” Rena cried. “I’ll love to do them.”

“But—can you? Do you know how?” the Rose girl hesitated. “I’m afraid to touch them myself.”

Rena’s laugh rang out. “My dear Miss ‘Rose,’ I’ve been pruning roses for years and years. I’m a gardener; I’ve had two years at Swanley. We’re both gardeners; we’ll tell you all about it afterwards. But we’re hungry; we’ve had a long day of work and travelling, and it’s after five. Won’t you put on the kettle, if I get to work?”

She opened her bag and produced a pruning-knife and big gloves. “There! Does that look like business?”

“It’s utterly convincing, and I beg your pardon. Please go and cut my roses to the ground,” the Rose girl said in delight. “You’ll understand I couldn’t believe my luck that a real gardener should come and ask for tea just when I needed one so desperately.”

“And eggs and bacon! Can you manage that? We had a sandwich lunch,” Rena pleaded.

“Oh, eggs and bacon, of course! The kettle’s on; I shan’t keep you waiting long.”

“Sporting of you! I’ll finish the roses after tea,” and Rena touched her forehead in a salute and turned to the neglected garden.

“Go and help to carry trays, Lisabel,” she commanded presently.

“No, please don’t bother! I can do it, really; I was only rotting,” the Rose girl spoke from the doorway. “I know where everything is; it won’t take me a minute to find things. What is it you call her? Is it rude to ask? I’m so wildly curious.”

“Lisabel Durrant; I’m Rena Mackay.” Rena was on her knees beside a bush rose.

“Lisabel?”

“Elisabel is the whole of it. Elizabeth and Isabel put into one.”

“Daft, isn’t it?” said the owner of the name, strolling across to them. “I didn’t make it up. Please let me help; I must do something. Which table would you like us to use, Miss Rose?”

The Rose girl looked at her with dancing eyes. “We aren’t quite old friends yet,” she said primly. “Only my family and very old friends call me Rose. To other people I’m Rosamund.”

Rena looked up at her, laughing. “Not really? Rosamund, of The Rose and Squirrel House? But how tophole!”

“Rosamund Kane, of The Rose Craft-Shop.” Rosamund brought a yellow cloth and spread it on a table. “My sisters—no, I mean my aunts—keep The Squirrel Tea-House. We joined forces a year ago and became The Rose and Squirrel.”

“And may we be ‘other people,’ to whom you’re Rosamund? Or are we in outer darkness as strangers, and are you Miss Kane?” Rena demanded. “We’re going to be your neighbours; we haven’t explained that yet. But you’ll see quite a lot of us. Must we call you Miss Rose Shop?”

“It sounds horrible,” Rosamund admitted, setting the table with green cups and plates. “What do you mean by being neighbours?”

“We’re going to stay in the village. You know the big empty house, up in the woods there, just under the hills?”

“I know there is one. But no one lives there?”

“We’ve come to put the gardens in order. We’ve been spying out the land this afternoon; we only arrived from the north about three o’clock.” Rena, clipping busily, was already surrounded by red rose-shoots. “We’ve had a first quick look round; there’s heaps to do. Now we have to find beds for the night, and then to-morrow we’ll get into working kit and go for the job in earnest.”

“I suppose you couldn’t put us up?” Lisabel asked hopefully.

“Oh, Miss Craft-Shop—do!” Rena cried. “Oh, give us beds for a night or two! Please!”

“Afraid I can’t. We don’t let rooms; we haven’t any to spare,” and Rosamund turned to go into The Squirrel House again. “But Mrs George, at the inn, might take you,” she added. “That’s The Dragon, just beyond my garden. Mrs George is a dear, and the house is quite nice.”

“Mrs George, of The Dragon? Not really?”

Rosamund laughed and nodded. She disappeared, and they heard the sizzling of bacon from the kitchen.

“I wish we could stay here,” Lisabel said, gathering Rena’s cuttings into a pile. “I don’t like inns.”

“I mean to stay here,” Rena spoke in a carefully lowered voice. “We’ll wangle it somehow—for one night, at least. She said she was all alone, and ‘they’ don’t come back till Saturday. Why shouldn’t we have their beds?”

“Well, of course, if you’ve made up your mind!” and Lisabel gave an admiring laugh. “Miss Rosamund Craft-Shop doesn’t know what she’s up against!”

“Don’t say anything to her. We’ll make her see reason presently. We shall have a heated argument over the bill for our tea,” Rena prophesied. “She’ll refuse to charge, because I’ve done her roses. She’ll want to say we’re quits; she’s the sort. I can see it in her eye. And I feel that she can be firm, very firm.”

“So can you. I shall look on and cheer for both sides.”

“So long as you don’t jeer,” Rena remarked.

“Why argue about it? It would be quite fair, if she suggests it. She’d have to pay a man to do this job.”

“I know. I shall get the worst of it. But I shall argue, all the same.”

Rosamund came out from The Squirrel House, carrying the teapot and a yellow cosy.

“I’ll make bread and butter presently. You can start on the eggs and bacon with plain bread. Oh, thank you! I was hoping you would!”

Lisabel stared at her. “Would what? Take off my hat?” She had pulled it off and thrown it aside, setting free a waving cloud of red curls which made a halo round her face.

“You look so different. You should never wear a hat,” Rosamund told her earnestly. “You shouldn’t hide it. I have lots of red-haired friends, and I love the colour. Yours is gorgeous.”

“It’s very showy,” Lisabel grumbled.

“I made her bob when I bobbed, and that was when we both went to college,” Rena explained, coming through the gap in the wall to the Squirrel forecourt. “She used to do it so neatly, as primly as anything. When it was cut it all flared up like that, and now she can only make it lie down by squashing it with a hat. I suppose you haven’t—well, could I put my hands under the scullery tap, Miss Craft-Shop?”

“There is a bathroom,” Rosamund assured her, with dancing eyes.

“No! Oh, it’s perfect! I knew it was. Show me the bathroom, or I won’t believe it! How do you manage it, in a cottage?”

“I had it specially put in, or rather, some friends put it in for me. They were determined I should be clean, even in a cottage; to say nothing of being comfortable! Do come and have a good wash, while I fetch your food,” and Rosamund led the way back into the rose garden of the Rose cottage, and through the big front room.

“What a perfectly lovely room!” Rena exclaimed. “I want to look at everything. May I?”

“Not if you want time to wash,” Rosamund retorted. “Your tea will be cold. Here’s the bathroom.”

She opened a door, and Rena sighed and turned from the pretty room, with its deep yellow walls, brown curtains, yellow cushions, brown-framed water-colour sketches and brown-tinted photographs.

She came out from the bathroom looking radiant, however.

“Liza, come and wash! Such a comfort, when we were expecting the village pump!”

“I know,” Rosamund had come to the doorway. “I heard you. Eggs and bacon forward; mademoiselle est servie!”

“And the bathroom has a window that looks right into the heart of the woods! But there’s a back garden that needs weeding badly. Oh, what is this weird thing, please?”

“It’s my loom. It takes up a lot of room, doesn’t it?”

“Do you weave your own goods? How thrilling! I’d love to watch!”

“I haven’t had time to use it yet,” Rosamund explained, placing basket chairs round the low table, while Lisabel disappeared indoors. “I’ve been away all spring, first in London and then abroad; the loom was a Christmas present. I’m hoping to get down to it soon, but I may be too busy.”

“I suppose your busy season begins at Easter? How pretty this is!” and Rena sank with a sigh of content into the wicker arm-chair and gazed at the green cups on the yellow cloth, the yellow cosy, and the green-handled knives and green paper napkins. “It’s perfect; an artistic treat! And after what we might have had! A cottage parlour, with the window stuffed with dusty geraniums and a drooping aspidistra on the front table! I suppose you’re very crowded once the season starts? You can’t have much time for weaving?”

Rosamund laughed, and smoothed the cloth, blown up by the wind. “This is better than your stifling cottage! Yes, we’re kept busy, but there are several of us.”

“Seven of you?”

“No—oh no! I said ‘several.’ We share the work. But I shall have my hands fuller than they were last summer. I’m expecting a baby in a day or two.”

Rena looked at her. Then she lay back in her chair and gave peal after peal of laughter.

Rosamund’s eyes twinkled. “But it’s true! He’s in London at present. He’s six weeks old.”

“Oh, I’m tired!” Rena moaned. “Yes, I see. You’re expecting a baby in a day or two!” and she went off into another shriek of laughter.

“What is the matter, Rena Mackay?” Lisabel demanded. “I’ll pour hot water over you if you don’t stop.” She had come from the house unnoticed by the others.

“She says——” gasped Rena, and she sat up and addressed Rosamund severely “Why did you give me such a shock? Is the baby coming to live here?”

“I hope so. He’s my brother.”

“Your brother?” Rena argued. “But you must be about my age? How can your brother be six weeks old? Oh, is he a ‘step’?”

“I’m twenty-three. Yes, he’s a ‘step,’ ” Rosamund agreed. “My father married the sister of the Squirrel people, so they’re my aunts.”

“And you joined forces with them? How jolly for them!”

“Jolly for me,” Rosamund retorted. She turned away, then paused, and added, “My father died. So my stepmother and the infant are coming home to be with her sisters for a time.”

“Won’t the kid be a bother to the old ladies? You’ll have to keep him from worrying them.”

“What old ladies?” Rosamund stared down at her.

“Your aunts. Well, I don’t mean ‘old,’ perhaps; but old to have a baby about. If their sister married your father——” Rena said doubtfully, suspicious of Rosamund’s amused eyes.

“Oh! Yes, I see! I’m going to take charge of young Roderic. He won’t be a trouble to them,” Rosamund said seriously. “I couldn’t let my baby brother be a nuisance to the old ladies, naturally! Call me if you want more hot water. I’ll bring you jam and cakes and bread and butter presently.”

“This is something like a tea!” Rena sighed ecstatically, as the Rose girl disappeared into The Squirrel House. “But there’s something odd about her family. I didn’t like her grin when she said that about her baby brother and her aunts.”

“Bother her aunts! I’m hungry,” and Lisabel set to work on the eggs and bacon.

Rena laughed and poured out a cup of tea. “When you think how we were feeling less than an hour ago, all hot and dirty and hungry, on that log in the lane! And then a window opened, and we found—The Rose and Squirrel! My fairy godmother is looking after me, after all; I was afraid she’d gone on strike. I shall stay the night in The Squirrel House and have a bath in the Rose, or I’ll know the reason why.”

“It’s more likely to be that girl who knows the reason why,” Lisabel remarked. “I don’t believe she’ll have us.”

“You’re the complete and absolute pessimist,” Rena mocked. “Believe in the best possible luck until it lets you down, my child. Isn’t my faith generally justified?”

“It was this time,” Lisabel admitted. “You were sure we’d find a bathroom.”

“I wasn’t. I thought it was most unlikely. But I was prepared to enjoy the village pump, and so my godmother sent me a beautiful bathroom. You didn’t expect anything, you worm. Why should you share my luck?”

“That is my luck, and it has been all along—that you’ve let me share yours.” Lisabel spoke with sudden vehemence.

“Oh, rot! The tea’s gone to your head,” Rena said brusquely. “More bread? Keep a corner for cakes and jam!”

“What is this for, please?” Rena fingered a round hole in the middle of their table and looked up at Rosamund, who was taking away their plates.

“For a golden umbrella; a very large umbrella, big enough to keep the sun off a whole family. If The Squirrel House had been ready for visitors, you’d have seen our gold and green gamps from the bus. As it is, I hadn’t even hung out the signs. When I heard you mourning about the want of tea-places I shoved the big board through the window over your heads, and then ran upstairs and hung out the squirrels and my rose.”

“You knocked plaster down my neck,” Lisabel remarked.

“Sorry! I apologise. I’d been sweeping out the loggia, and I was dusting when I heard your voices. That’s the loggia; that open place. It was once a shed,” Rosamund explained.

“Won’t you put the umbrellas up?” Rena pleaded. “We’d like to see it look complete.”

“Not to-night. I don’t want people coming in for meals yet. We shall open properly as soon as the others come: my aunts, and my stepmother, and young Roderic.”

“What’s the joke about your aunts?” Rena demanded.

“Joke? No joke at all. They run the tea-house and the home-made-cake business. Aunt Audrey is most efficient. I help them, and I attend to the fruit in the summer, as it’s in my garden. And I shall look after young Roderic. But my real job is the craft-shop. I’ve some lovely goods for sale, and when they’re all spread out in my big room it looks most attractive. I do quite a lot of business.”

“You’ll have your hands full. But won’t the baby’s mother be here to look after him?”

“Oh, she’ll be here!” Rosamund’s opinion of her stepmother needed no more words. “Can I bring you anything else?”

“You’ve brought us far too much! We can’t eat it all, and I want to eat it all! It looks so nice,” Rena wailed.

“Then I’ll leave you to finish. I’ve just made myself some tea. I hadn’t had any when you came.”

Rena whirled round on her. “And you’re going to have it indoors? You pig! You might bring it out here and talk to us! Wouldn’t you a thousand times rather be outside?”

Rosamund paused. “A million times! But one doesn’t usually thrust one’s self on customers.”

“Oh, but we’re neighbours! Do bring your pot to that table and eat some of our bread and butter! Liza and I are so tired of one another. It would be a joy to have somebody new to speak to.”

Rosamund laughed and went into the house. She brought out a green cloth and spread it on another table, and set her tray and teapot on it.

“All green, with yellow china!” Rena commented. “Ours are all yellow, with green plates and cups. I like your colour schemes.”

“You promised to tell me why we’re to be neighbours,” Rosamund suggested, pouring out her tea. “I’m sorry I have no home-made cakes for you, but I haven’t begun baking yet. I’m still cleaning down the house. I came in advance, to have it all ready for the aunts and Roderic; and yesterday I took a holiday and went off for the day to see some old friends. So my cleaning isn’t finished yet, and the woman who was to have helped me has let me down. Her kids have begun with whooping-cough and she can’t leave them. I’ve wired to Audrey and the rest to stay a day or two longer, and I’m gradually getting things straight. That’s why I’m all alone in possession. Now won’t you tell me a little more about this idea of being neighbours? Are you really going to take the gardens of that big house in hand? But why? And where do you come from?”

“Near Sheffield,” Rena explained. “Our lady boss is a Mrs Thorburn, a widow; she has a lovely place, with big gardens, and Lisabel and I keep them in order for her. She sent us to Swanley for training, but we’d been working for her before that, while we were just school kids. I lost my father when I was sixteen, and I had nobody to depend on. I knew I’d have to turn to and work, and Mrs Thorburn offered me a job to help her old gardener, who was almost past work. Lisabel wanted a job too, so we did the garden together till we were old enough for college. When our course was over we went back to our garden and took charge, and old Andrew retired on a pension. We have a boy to do digging and rolling; and we’re to find what help we need for the gardens here. Our lady boss won’t allow us to do anything that’s too heavy for us. But we’re both hefty young women and there isn’t much we can’t tackle.”

“Can you, by any chance, put washers on taps?” Rosamund asked seriously.

Rena laughed. “I can! Are you in difficulties? Do let me help! Pleased to be of any assistance to The Squirrel House!”

“I’ve never had to do it,” Rosamund admitted. “Audrey sees to all that sort of thing. I’d love to have a lesson and feel independent of her. I’ve a dripping tap, and I’m afraid it’s getting worse. It will take a week to fetch a man from the village. I know where Audrey keeps her tools and washers. It would be awfully good of you.”

“I’m a handy lad,” said Rena. “A really useful sort of bloke to have about the house. Lead me to the tap!—but not till I’ve finished that raspberry jam. Cakes don’t matter so long as there’s home-made jam. Home-grown also, I presume? I saw your raspberry canes.”

“Millions of them. We have a wild rush of work for a few weeks, in the fruit season.”

“Who will see to—what’s his name?”

“Roderic. I may park him with friends for a month, if his mother isn’t here at the time. I don’t expect her to settle here,” Rosamund explained. “She’s lived in India; this will seem too tame for words. She’ll be bored to tears in a month.”

“But won’t she take the kid, if she goes away?”

“Not if I can help it. I’m going to do my best to keep him.”

“Oh!” Rena looked at her curiously. “What will your stepmother and your aunts say to that?”

“I expect she’ll be only too pleased. But what about you and the big house here? What brings you so far from home?” Rosamund changed the subject.

“The house belonged to an old uncle of Mrs Thorburn’s, who had lived abroad for his health, for years. He’s died and left it to her, and she wants it put in order. She knew the grounds must be in an awful state; it’s been shut up and neglected for two years. So she sent us to have a look at it, and if we think we can make anything of it, we’re to stay and get on with the job, and she’ll find other help at home.”

“And can you? But I suppose you’ll try?”

“It wouldn’t occur to Rena that she couldn’t,” said Lisabel.

“You do make me sound cocksure and conceited.”

“Not a scrap. But nothing ever stops you,” Lisabel retorted. “You go straight ahead, whatever’s in the way.”

“With help, I’m sure we can make the place look decent,” Rena turned to Rosamund. “It will be tremendous sport tackling the job. I’ve never taken on anything so big. It was fairly simple to keep the garden at home in order. This is another matter; I wouldn’t give it up for anything, now that I’ve seen the grounds. There are tremendous possibilities. I’m keen to see what we can do with it.”

“Will Mrs Thorburn come and live here?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. She has her own home. She may sell the house presently, but it must be put in order first. Now what about that tap? Can’t I have a look at it?”

“It’s in my house,” and Rosamund led the way through her neglected rose garden to the big brown and yellow room.

A wooden chest stood open beside one wall. She nodded towards it. “There are some of my handwoven dress-lengths and scarves.”

Rena glanced into the box. “What lovely colours! Oh, look at that blue! And the gorgeous greens and purples! Don’t you love working with them?”

“Just love it. The tap’s in the scullery.”

“Yes, I hear it.” But Rena lingered as she crossed the room. “Your pictures! Are they—yes, I see they’re original paintings. How topping! Here’s a lovely garden!”

“That was the view from my bedroom window for six years,” Rosamund said, as her guest stood gazing at the water-colour drawing of a garden with cedars, and a long drive circling a lawn.

“Beautiful place!” Rena commented. “Whereabouts is it?”

“In Oxfordshire, on the edge of the Chiltern Hills. I love to go back; I was there yesterday.”

“Ruins!” Rena stood before a picture of grey arches, with a glimpse of lawn beyond.

“The cloisters of an old abbey. That’s the abbey gate,” and Rosamund pointed to another sketch.

“And here’s a lake. Are they all by the same artist?”

“Yes, rather! Housewarming gifts—like the bath and the roses.”

“Really? I say, you must have awfully jolly friends!”

“The best in the world,” Rosamund agreed. “I’m luckier than most people. I know it, and I’m very thankful.”

Rena glanced at her, and then turned to look at the brown-framed photo-enlargements which hung between the water-colours.

“I don’t wonder they gave her lovely things. She’s very attractive,” she said to herself. “I’m glad we tumbled on this place.—Is this the same old ruined abbey?” she asked.

“Yes; it’s the place I love best. That’s the chapter-house doorway, and this is the refectory. That painting is the abbot’s garden; I used to keep it in order.”

“Lovely—those pansies among the old stones! Oh, what darling children!”

Rosamund laughed. “They’re dear kids. But what about that tap?”

Rena sighed. “Your room’s too fascinating. All right; let’s get to business!” and she followed Rosamund to the scullery. “Come and watch. You may not have a handy-man on the premises next time. Where’s your main? We must turn off the water first.”

“I like to learn new things. I’m very much obliged to you,” Rosamund said earnestly, and perched herself on the table to watch the operations.

“I wonder what Liza’s up to?” Rena said. “I hope she’s going on with the roses, but I doubt it.”

“Oh, is she—can she—would she do them as well as you?”

“Every bit. She’s jolly clever, and she knows her job. She’d do them all right.”

“Then why are you so doubtful about it?”

“Because she doesn’t do things without being asked. She’ll say you might not trust her to do them. She hasn’t any confidence in herself.”

“How’s that? I suppose you have to supply it?”

“So far as I can. I’m always hustling her into things. She’s had a rotten time,” Rena said gravely, as she unscrewed the tap. “She lost her father when she was twelve, and they had almost nothing to live on. When I met her she was sixteen, and they were living in a cottage on the moors, with one older sister who had a teaching job—not a very good job, as she hadn’t been able to finish her training—and a mother, who looked after the younger kids and the house. Lisabel was going all to pieces; only half educated and quite aware of it, not trying to learn any more, resenting all that had happened and grousing eternally about her bad luck and her hard times, and not even helping her mother and sister with the house and garden. We—my chum and I—were frightfully sorry for her, and we did what we could to buck her up. Then my father’s ship was lost at sea, and I was all knocked over by it; I had no one left, you see. I pulled myself together, of course, and Mrs Thorburn offered me her garden job till I was old enough for Swanley and offered to send me to college, if I’d work for her afterwards. We brought Lisabel in too, and she worked up for the entrance exam with me, and now she’s quite different. But she still hasn’t really got over those four years when she went to seed. She needs boosting all the time; she’s always sure she can’t do things.”

Rosamund looked at her ‘handy-man’ with interest. “It seems to me, reading between the lines, that you’ve boosted her all along. How did she manage to pass her college exam, after wasting those four years?”

“I had to work for it, so we swotted together. I’d failed in matric, so I had to take the entrance exam, and I saw that Lisabel took it too. She was far too interesting to be left to look after chickens and potatoes all her life—and she wasn’t doing even that. She just roamed about the moors and made crochet lace; for herself, not even for sale! Nancy and I talked to her very straight; Nancy was my chum, but she’s married now. Liza’s glad; she was always jealous of Nancy.”

“She wants to feel you belong to her,” Rosamund agreed. “I’m awfully glad you came to the old Squirrel for tea!”

“Why?” Rena asked, laughing. “It seems a sudden remark! I’m glad, but then I’ve reason to be. I’ve had a topping tea. Is it because of the tap, or the roses?”

“It’s really the tap,” Rosamund told her seriously. “But I’m glad to have the pleasure and the honour of your acquaintance.”

“My hat!” Rena laughed again. “I really ought to curtsy. Now this thing’s all right. What about the roses? I bet you we find Liza loafing in a chair!”

Lisabel was standing irresolutely beside the pile of rose cuttings, her pruning-knife in her hand.

“I was wondering if you’d like me to go on with this job. I didn’t like to start, for fear you’d rather Rena did it all.” She looked at Rosamund doubtfully.

“Oh, please help her, won’t you? It will take half the time, if you do some,” Rosamund exclaimed.

Lisabel’s face cleared. “I’d like to help, if you’ll trust me.”

“You take that round bed. I’ll go on here,” and Rena pulled on her gloves and knelt beside the roses.

“I’m extremely obliged to you both,” said Rosamund, as she went to clear the tea-tables.

“That girl may make light of it, but she’s been a brick,” Rosamund said to herself, as she washed cups and plates. “She’s stood by that other one and yanked her out of her despair and hauled her along with her, into college and through it, and into this jolly job. I shall tell the story to the Abbey people; it’s just the sort of plucky helpful thing they’ll love. Lisabel’s had a hard time, no doubt; but against that she ought to set Rena’s friendship. I believe Rena has changed the world for her. I’d like to hear what Lisabel has to say about it; I hope she’s decently grateful. I’m really glad to know them. Perhaps they’ll come here often for meals, if they’re working in that garden. I wonder how long the job will take them?”

“Could we have our bill, Miss Rose Shop?” Rena appeared in the doorway. “Your roses are properly pruned; I hope they’ll reward you in the summer. I slipped into your house for another wash, and Liza has cleared away all our mess. Now we’d like to settle up; I’m afraid we’ve given you rather a lot of work.”

“Oh—yes!” Rosamund turned to her. “And at the same time you might let me have the bill for the pruning and the plumbing.”

“Now don’t be horrid!” Rena pleaded. “Those were done for love. I really wanted to help the roses.”

“And I really was pleased to give you tea. It has been a great pleasure. I was just a trifle lonely; you’ve been a boon to me this afternoon.”

Rena looked at her with laughing eyes. “Are you going to be nasty?”

“Just horrid; as horrid as I can be. If you’re silly, I shall have to be horrid.”

“But we can’t take your tea, and all your eggs and stuff, and not pay for them!”

“Of course not; I quite see that; and I can’t take your work and time and not pay for those, can I? You’ve saved me the fag of having two men about, as well as the time of fetching them and waiting for them. It’s a huge relief to know those jobs are done. What do I owe you, Miss Mackay?”

Rena’s eyes sparkled. “I asked you first. What’s the bill for our tea?”

“One and sixpence each, as you had no cakes.”

“Too cheap! The bill for the roses is two and three, and for the tap eightpence; so I owe you a penny,” Rena said triumphantly. “Here you are!”

“I shall frame the penny, to remind me of you. It’s too bad of you,” Rosamund protested. “I don’t want you to pay for your tea at all.”

“But you want to pay me for my work! That isn’t generous.”

“Now you aren’t fair,” Rosamund flashed at her. “It was you who suggested paying. I hadn’t mentioned it.”

“I beg your pardon,” Rena exclaimed. “That’s true. But I’m an independent wretch, and I do like to pay my way. Do you mean that because we did your jobs we’re to be your guests?”

“I mean that friends can help one another out of holes, but they can’t pay for their tea.”

“You are jolly nice!” Rena cried. “That’s frightfully decent of you! I couldn’t quite suggest it, when we took you by storm and insisted on being fed. I know it’s been a fag for you. But if you really mean to be chummy, of course, we can’t say any more, except a great many thanks. Awfully sporting of you, all the same.”

“It was nice of you to drop in this afternoon and do those jobs for me,” Rosamund said politely.

Rena laughed. “Lisabel said you would win. Now, Miss Rose Shop, what would you advise us to do? It’s seven o’clock and getting dark. We must sleep somewhere. Our kit is reposing in the bus office, at the end of your lane, and it’s heavy, so we don’t want to lug it too far. Must we really go to the inn? You must know the resources of the village.”

Lisabel stood in the doorway leaning on the wall, and gazed at Rosamund, her red curls making a halo round her head. “I shouldn’t be surprised if it was very wet in half an hour,” she said. “There’s a damp feeling in the air. I’m not going up and down that straggling village lugging my suitcase and looking for a bed. It will have to be the pub. If we sleep there, would you let us come to you for supper and breakfast, Miss Rose Shop?”

“Mrs George has painters in,” Rosamund hesitated.

Rena fell dramatically on her knees. “Miss Rose Shop, take pity on us! Give us shelter for the night! If you won’t have us in your house, lend us blankets and a mattress, and let us sleep in your loggia! Don’t throw us to the dragons!”

“The Dragon is very nice, and a great friend of ours,” Rosamund scolded. “Get up, silly. I’m not supposed to let rooms.”

“But your aunts are away. Couldn’t we have their beds?”

“Oh, you could, but——”

“Are you going to sleep alone in the house?” Lisabel demanded. “Will they like that? Oughtn’t you to have company at night?”

“They won’t like it! No aunts would allow it.” Rena sprang to her feet. “You said your woman had deserted you unexpectedly. The aunts don’t know you’re to be all alone at night, do they?”

“Not yet,” Rosamund admitted, her eyes dancing. “I shall tell them afterwards, of course.”

“No, you won’t, for you won’t have been alone. We’ll keep you company, and the aunts will be satisfied. Oh, let us keep you company!” Rena pleaded. “We won’t be any trouble to you, and it seems so sensible. You’d like to have us, wouldn’t you?”

Rosamund leaned against the sink and laughed at her. “I don’t know that I would. I was looking forward to a night all on my own.”

“But you could put aside your feelings for our sake?” Rena coaxed.

“I thought it was to be for my sake?”

“Or for the sake of your aunts’ feelings,” Lisabel suggested.

“It’s for everybody’s sake! Say you’ll have us, Miss Rose Shop!”

“I certainly won’t, if you go on calling me by that hideous name!”

“I’ll call you Lady of the Rose, or Rose-of-the-World, or any poetic thing you can think of, if only you’ll let us sleep in your empty beds.”

“Not Rose-of-the-World, please! My name’s Rosamund. Well, I’ll have you, then. Go and fetch your bags before the rain begins. I’ll have to see about beds.”

“Somebody else calls her Rose-of-the-World,” was Rena’s quick thought. “Cheers! Oh, cheers!” she cried aloud. “We’ll help with the beds. Do make use of us, please.”

“The beds are aired and almost ready. I’m expecting the family in a day or two,” Rosamund reminded her. “It means a little rearranging, that’s all. It can only be for two nights, you know. We shall be overcrowded when the aunts and young Roderic and his mother arrive.”

“My hat, you will! We shall have to put up with The Dragon then. Perhaps they’ll decide to stay in London,” Rena suggested hopefully.

Rosamund laughed. “Go and fetch your baggage.”

“I say—Rosamund!” Rena turned in the doorway, with dancing eyes full of mischief.

“I like that better. I shall call you Rena.”

“Oh, I can offer you quite a variety!” Rena mocked. “My name’s Andrena; it shortens nicely into Andrew, or Andy, or Drena, or on occasions it becomes Andrewina. Take your choice. At college I was always Drena.”

“Andy suits you rather well. Do go and fetch your things!”

“Yes—but, I say! We can only come on one condition, you know.”

Rosamund laughed. “All right! I won’t argue this time. What’s the condition?”

“That we pay six and six each for bed and breakfast.”

“Five and six, and supper will be thrown in. It will be only scrambled eggs and potted meat. I can’t go shopping, to provide you with an elaborate dinner.”

“But we’ve had our supper along with our tea!”

“There’s plenty of jam, and there are apples and oranges. I brought them in for myself. We’ll have a picnic. Run along and fetch your nighties and your toothbrushes.”

“If it was only a nighty and a toothbrush!” Rena groaned. “Come on, Lisabel! We’re in clover. This is the biggest bit of luck yet. A night in The Squirrel House! My fairy godmother!”

“It certainly won’t be a night in The Squirrel!” Rosamund retorted. “You’ll sleep in my house; I can do what I like with my own, but I can’t let you rooms in my aunts’ house when they aren’t here to give permission. If the Rose isn’t good enough, you can go to The Dragon.”

“The bathroom’s in your house, isn’t it?” Lisabel suggested.

“That will do for us. Come and lug our trunks along, Liza!”

“Trunks!” said Rosamund. “Do you dress for dinner? Because I don’t.”

“Oh, not for dinner!” Rena shouted from the courtyard, and disappeared.

“I don’t see why they need so much luggage. They’ve come to work, not to pay visits or play tennis,” Rosamund said to herself, as she stripped the sheets off her bed and changed the pillow-cases. She made up the bed again, gathered the sheets and a few necessaries in her arms, and carried them to the back bedroom of The Squirrel House.

“I know Aunt Elspeth will like me to use her room. I’ve slept in it before. I want to arrange that Rena has mine and Lisabel has the back room; I can’t help it, but I do prefer Rena, and I’d like her to sleep in my room. But I don’t see how I can say so. They’ll have to decide for themselves.”

She returned to The Rose House and glanced into the back room, which looked out over the garden to the woods. It was neat and ready for a guest, and she turned to her own much bigger room, which looked on the rose garden and the Squirrel courtyard.

“It’s a good thing I prepared that other room for the stepmother. There’s even a bottle in the bed. Mine doesn’t need much,” and she ran mop and duster over the floor and the furniture, and hurriedly cleared a drawer and the pegs under a chintz curtain.

“Those girls are taking a long time! They’ve gone farther than the bus office. There’s Rena’s voice now. This room does look nice!” and she glanced round with great satisfaction. “I hope she’ll sleep here!”

She ran down and met her lodgers at the door. “Come along! The rain’s just beginning. Oh, what have you been doing?”

Each girl carried a big suitcase, and in addition each had a brown paper bag. They thrust these toward their hostess.

“Bread!” Rena announced. “You didn’t know we were coming. You can’t possibly have enough in. More fruit; now we shan’t feel we’re robbing you. Could we fetch extra supplies of milk or eggs or butter?”

Rosamund laughed. “You absurd people! I had plenty; you’ll have to eat double supplies.”

“Oh, we shall, to-morrow. Wait till you see what we can do after a whole day’s work!”

Rosamund led them upstairs. “You must choose your rooms. One is bigger than the other. I don’t know whether you’ll choose by the colour or the view. I’ll leave it to you.”

“You shouldn’t have fagged to give us separate rooms!” Rena exclaimed. “We could have fitted in together quite well. Oh, I’d like this room! Blue and grey; oh, what pretty things!” She whirled round. “Is this your room? Have you turned out for me? How simply topping of you!”

“I can put myself in my aunts’ house, but I couldn’t put you there,” Rosamund retorted. “I’m glad you like my room. You can see the hills from the window.”

“I haven’t gone as far as the window. I’m looking at your room, and all your pretty pots and things,” Rena murmured, and gazed about in delight. “I think I’ll sprain my ankle and have to be nursed in here for weeks!”

“The other room’s pretty too, all dark green,” said Lisabel.

“Then it will suit you. I couldn’t possibly give this up, now that I’ve seen it. I’m heart-broken that I can only have it for two nights,” Rena mourned.

Rosamund laughed. “You’d better settle in and make yourselves at home,” and she left them and ran downstairs.

The walls of the front bedroom were grey, the curtains and bedspread were deep blue, the chintz of the corner cupboard had a blue pattern on a grey ground. The ornaments were bowls and vases and candlesticks of pottery, all of deep purple blue. Rena gazed round and drew a long breath of delight. Then she went to the window, and stood looking across the garden and the courtyard to the road and beyond it to fields and trees, and a ridge of hills crowned by a round clump of beech trees.

She turned at last and went to inspect Lisabel’s little green room and to look out into the woods, where the first shades of green and brown and olive were beginning to colour the trees.

“Lisabel, my child, this is the best thing the fairy godmother has sent us for some time. If only we could spend the whole month here!”

“We shall hate leaving it after two days,” Lisabel said gloomily. “The inn will be awful after this.”

“Oh well, let’s enjoy it while we have it!” and Rena went back to her blue room to unpack her slippers and find a comb for the yellow curls which were almost as wild a mop as Lisabel’s halo, though less startling in colour.

As she unpacked she kept looking at Rosamund’s treasures. Here again were photos of the Abbey ruins, the gardens, and of a big old country-house; while other pictures were of Swiss mountains and waterfalls. There were more portraits of the children she had seen in the big photograph downstairs: two curly-headed girls of five years old, who looked like twins; two fair-haired boys who were rather younger; a girl of about seven and a small brother.

“The Rose Lady has heaps of friends! Are these the people who call her Rose-of-the-World?” And Rena went downstairs to ask if she could do anything to help.

“Are these kiddies twins?” Rena asked, pausing before the photograph, later in the evening.

“Elizabeth and Margaret. They’re five; I’ve known them since the day they were born.” Rosamund was kindling a fire on the hearth in her yellow room. “There, that will be cheery. We’ll burn fir-cones, and you shall bring me some more on your way home to-morrow. We’ll feed in The Squirrel House, but afterwards we’ll sit in the dark round my fire, and you shall tell me all about your college days.”

“Topping!” Rena exclaimed. “And it’s raining hard. We’ll be cosy and think how we might have been lying in a ditch under our coats.”

“Oh, I think you’d have found The Dragon!” Rosamund said, and went towards the connecting door which led into The Squirrel House.

“Can’t I help?” Rena called after her. “Lisabel’s writing to our lady boss to report progress. We take it in turns to write. Couldn’t you make use of me?”

“There’s nothing to do, thanks. I’ve been spring-cleaning, but I can’t do much by lamplight. I shall knock off till to-morrow.”

“Then what about a spot of weaving? Won’t you show me how you do it?”

Rosamund laughed. “You don’t know much! It takes hours to warp up—to put on the warp, you know. You don’t just sit down and begin to weave. The warp threads are yards long, and they’re very difficult to handle.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Rena admitted. “What are you going to weave first? What colour will you put on, when you do begin?”

“Amethyst, like your jumper,” Rosamund said promptly. “I’ve promised my Aunt Elspeth an amethyst frock, with green pattern, for the summer.”

“How pretty! They say amethyst is an old lady’s colour, but I love it. But won’t green patterns be rather startling for your aunt? It sounds too vivid for——”

“For an old lady,” Rosamund agreed, her face serious. “It does, but she seems to like the idea. But when I shall have time to weave it I don’t know. I promised it before I knew about young Roderic. He’s more important than handwoven frocks for aunts. Look, here are the bobbins all ready,” and she opened a big box and showed a supply of reels and spools of all colours, of silk and thread and wool.

“What a lovely lot you have! And what gorgeous colours!”

“They were given to me along with the loom as a Christmas present. I could show you other fascinating things I have for sale, but in a few days I shall be spreading them out in case customers come to The Squirrel House, so you’ll see them then. These little wooden animals and figures are carved by a crippled boy in the village. I sell heaps of them, and he is so happy about it.”

Rena stood fingering a wooden squirrel and a rabbit and a dog.

“I’d have had some a few years ago. I knew a small boy who’d have loved them. He was an invalid—Mrs Thorburn’s little nephew—and we always gave him things. But he died when he was eleven. It was far better for him; he could never have been well. We tried to think he was getting better, but it never lasted long, and we came to see that it couldn’t be a real improvement and that recovery and health were out of the question. So it was better for him to go. But we missed him terribly, and we miss him still.”

“But if he could never have been well, you can’t be sorry,” Rosamund exclaimed. “It would be dreadful to live an invalid life for years. And you say he was only eleven!”

“I’m not sorry; I’m glad. He’d had years of it. We made him very happy, but as he grew older he’d have realized more and more how much he was missing. He was interested in everything, and I don’t think he suffered much, either pain or from being shut out of things. But he’d have grudged being helpless if he’d lived.”

“It’s much better to have a happy memory of him.”

“I know. Health means so much to me, that I couldn’t bear to think he’d never know what it was to run about. I’m sure he’s happy now. He was happy even lying in bed unable to move an inch, as he did for years.”

“Years!” said Rosamund. “Oh, you must be glad for him!”

“We are. But we miss him badly.” Rena laid down the little creatures and stood looking at a water-colour drawing of a pool in the woods. “That’s pretty. Didn’t we pass it on our way from the house?”

“Very likely. It’s among the trees, just behind The Squirrel House.”

“Is it done by the same artist who did your sketches?”

“Oh no! These, that I have for sale, are by a lady living here, in the woods. She gives all she earns by painting to send poor kids in London to the seaside.”

“What a ripping idea! You have some jolly people working for you! I suppose the cripple boy is fearfully glad of the money he makes?”

“He’s still gladder to feel he’s some use in the world,” and Rosamund closed the big box. “That’s my treasure chest. Wait till you see the things all spread out on show!”

“There’s a lot behind your craft-shop, it seems to me,” Rena remarked tentatively.

“There’s meant to be. That’s the idea of it.” Rosamund went through the door into the kitchen of The Squirrel House.

“May I come?” Rena stood in the doorway. “I’m like the Elephant’s Child, filled with curiosity. And I’m in love with your house. Your two houses, I mean!”

“There’s nothing to see—just a kitchen and a big empty front room. When the family’s at home we use the Squirrel to live in, and visitors have tea in my big room in wet weather. We don’t have many people on wet days, but we must have a place ready for those who do turn up. So they sit with the loom and the sales table, and they generally take away one of Jim’s creatures, or a hand-thrown pot—I’ve some lovely pottery—or a little picture. But we shall have to rearrange everything for young Roderic!”

“Yes, you’ll need a nursery. Where will you put him?”

“I’ve been thinking about it while I’ve been alone. I’ve a dream; perhaps it will come true. Maybe I’ll tell you about it after supper.”

“Round the fire of pine-cones. I’m looking forward to it.”

“I must make up my bed; I’m borrowing my Aunt Elspeth’s little room,” Rosamund explained. “Then I shall wash and do my hair; I feel a perfect sight, but I’ve been working all day and I didn’t expect visitors to stay the night! After all that, we’ll have supper, and then we can talk.”

She ran upstairs, and Rena wandered back to the front room of The Rose House, and stood looking at one after another of the pictures, and thinking of Rosamund and her shop, and the various stories lying behind it.

“She hasn’t always lived in a cottage! Her home was in this beautiful place, near these ruins, with all those jolly friends. And she’s lived abroad; she speaks French, and there are Swiss pictures in her room. She’s an interesting person—and jolly pretty! I wish the baby wasn’t coming; he’ll take up all her time. She doesn’t think much of her stepmother. We’ll come here to tea when the place is properly open, and then we’ll see them all.”

She was sitting by the fire when Rosamund glanced presently through the doorway. Rena had taken a book from a shelf and was deep in the first chapter, sunk down on a footstool, reading by the light of a small lamp on the mantelpiece.

Rosamund glanced at the shelf and saw what book was missing. She laughed to herself, and slipped back into The Squirrel House, closing the door gently. Rena heard nothing and read on.

Rosamund began to move about the Squirrel kitchen very quickly and purposefully, though quietly. For a few minutes she was busy in the front room. Then, after a satisfied look at her handiwork, she turned down the lamp, fetched baking-board and flour, glanced at the oven and nodded, and set to work.

Rena looked up from her book and sniffed. Then she dashed to the door and flung it open.

“What are you doing, Miss Rose Lady? What do I smell? Oh, topping! But you shouldn’t fag like that for us!”

“Hot scones for supper. I was afraid you’d smell them. I meant them to be a surprise.” Rosamund was wearing a big cooking apron and had rolled up her sleeves to the elbows. “Did you like the story? Isn’t a school story rather young for you?”

“It was cheek of me to bag it, but I thought you wouldn’t mind. I love school stories; it seems such ages since I was at school. I want to go on with it; may I? I don’t know the writer.”

“No, she wouldn’t be writing when you were at school. She’s only been at it for five years. Do finish it! Take it up to your room. I’m glad you like it.”

“You have several of her books?” Rena asked curiously.

“All of them. I know her. She’s secretary to my friends at the Abbey—where I lived for six years.”

“How thrilling! Is she as jolly as her book?”

Rosamund laughed. “She gave me that ripping cabinet of drawers, to keep my papers in, and a whole set of her books, when I took over The Rose House last summer. You may read one more chapter, and then fetch Lisabel down for supper.”

“This is a house of surprises!” Rena sighed in delight. “I am so glad Lisabel sat on that log and groused!” and she went back eagerly to her story.

She was still reading when Rosamund called reproachfully from the doorway, “It’s a long chapter, Andrena Mackay. I shall have to speak to Mary Devine.”

Rena dropped the book and sprang to the foot of the stairs. “Elisabel! Come down and eat hot scones!”

Rosamund, with grave face and dancing eyes, led them through the kitchen to the front room of The Squirrel House. It was almost dark, so she went before them and turned up the lamp on the table, under a deep red shade. The light shone on her coiled yellow plaits and some clear blue beads that sparkled on her neck; it shone also on a dainty supper-table, with daffodils in green jars, green plates and cups, a dish of amber honey, and one of marmalade, and one of bright red jelly, a creamy custard in a green bowl, and a plate of oranges and bananas.

“How awfully pretty!” said Lisabel, stirred for once to entire approval.

“How simply lovely of you!” Rena exploded. “You’ve put out all your best for us! But why? We’re only two strange girls, who took you by storm.” She was really touched as she looked at the preparations for their entertainment.

“I thought it would be fun to have a banquet. If you’ll sit down, I’ll bring you an omelette in three minutes.”

“An omelette!” said Rena. “Oh, you shouldn’t——”

But Rosamund had gone. The girls looked at one another and then sat down, and Rena’s eyes roved appreciatively over the table, with its colour and careful arrangement.

“She’s an angel! She’s taken no end of trouble. Did you put the marmalade on the table because it matched the oranges?” she asked, as Rosamund set a green dish on the mat before her place and lifted the cover to show the heaped yellow eggs. “And is that why we’re having an omelette?”

Rosamund nodded. “Things had to match. I knew you wouldn’t want marmalade, and you may not like honey, but they do add to the effect. Eat this while it’s hot!”

“Are you a frightfully posh cook?” Rena asked, as the omelette disappeared speedily.

“Not too bad. I’ve had some training,” Rosamund said lightly. “Now for hot scones and jelly. What will you drink? Shall we have coffee beside the fire afterwards?”

“When we’ve washed up. Oh yes, we’re going to help. I shall be really nasty if you make objections,” Rena told her.

When the kitchen was tidy, they sat round the fire of fir-cones and shared stories of college days. Rena and Lisabel, having been resident students, had many tales of evening ‘rags,’ as well as of incidents of their training. But Rosamund had much to tell also—of her cooking school in London, of the other students, and of mishaps during her early days—and The Rose House rang with Rena’s laughter as she described occasional casualties.

“I say, you’ve done a lot of cooking!” Rena exclaimed at last. “No wonder your scones and omelette were perfect. Can you really do all that fancy French stuff?”

“We had to learn it, for our diploma. I don’t expect ever to use it, but it’s jolly to feel I could take a really big job if I wanted to.”

“I should think so!” and Rena looked at her with deepened respect. “Did you pass exams?”

“First-class diploma. It’s worth having.”

“My goodness, yes! I wonder you didn’t turn out a Lord Mayor’s banquet for us!”

“I wanted to,” Rosamund admitted. “But I hadn’t the stores in. I had to be content with what I had. What time do you working people want breakfast?”

“Would eight o’clock do? We could be at work in the garden by nine.”

“Right! Will you come back for lunch?”

“Oh, may we?” Rena cried wistfully. “It would be so much jollier than taking sandwiches.”

“Sandwiches aren’t good enough for working people. Take some biscuits and apples for eleven o’clock, and be back here at one, and I’ll feed you properly. But it’s only for one day,” Rosamund warned them. “You must see Mrs George at The Dragon and arrange with her to go there on Saturday. The stepmother and the aunts will descend on me that day, to say nothing of my infant brother. I simply couldn’t——”

“Of course you couldn’t. We will go to The Dragon—when we must. But this is too jolly for words. Even two nights of it will be something to remember!”

And as Rena prepared for bed in the blue-and-grey room, with Mary Devine’s school story ready for the morning, if she woke in time to read a chapter or two, she said to herself again how very glad she was to be spending even two nights in The Rose and Squirrel House.

“It will make us better friends than we could have been if we’d come here for teas for a month!” she said, as she blew out her candle and snuggled down in Rosamund’s bed.

“I say!” Rosamund turned from the kitchen stove, where the bacon was sizzling in the pan, to gaze at her guests in the doorway. “Oh, I do like your working clothes! No wonder you needed suitcases!”

Rena, and Lisabel just behind, wore strong khaki breeches and big boots and khaki shirts to match. Since their time in college they had discarded the tunics in which they had worked as schoolgirls.

“But you ought to be shingled,” Rosamund added severely. “Your curls and Lisabel’s halo look quite out of place with those legs.”

“Liza always reminds me of the girl—I think it was in Punch—who was asked to take off her hat in the theatre. It was a little close hat; when she took it off her hair sprang up and stood out in a bush, and the people behind hastily begged her to put it on again,” said Rena.

“Don’t you hate being called Liza, Lisabel?” Rosamund asked, as she dished the bacon. “It’s too bad, when you’ve such a pretty name.”

“I used to hate it. It used to make me mad,” Lisabel admitted. She glanced at Rena, who had turned to put her book on its shelf again; then she came quickly into the kitchen. “Can I help, or carry anything for you?—I hadn’t a chance last night.” She spoke in a hurried undertone. “Rena wasn’t fair to herself; she didn’t tell you half she’s done for me. I heard what she said. She made me go to college; she made me work for the entrance exam, and she made me pass. She did it all; she worked with me, and she made me know things. I just didn’t dare to fail. She’s forced me on and pushed me through. Every single thing I have has come through her.”

Rosamund nodded. “I guessed it. I saw she was like that. Yes, thanks, those hot plates; that’s all, I think.”

“People have to get used to things at college,” said Rena, coming to the table. “Mostly Lisabel was ‘Durrant’ and I was ‘Mackay,’ of course. But our own crowd knew our names, and I was usually Drena and she was Liza. We just had to put up with it. But in the old days you used to see red when the boys called you Liza, didn’t you, Elisabel?”

“What are you going to do to-day? How will you start?” Rosamund asked, sitting down to pour out tea. She wore her blue smock again and had thrown aside the apron she had worn in the kitchen.

“I shall go first to the village, to look round for a hefty lad to help us. Can you advise me where to ask?” Rena inquired.

“The village will stare at your legs. It isn’t educated up to lady gardeners. Try Mr Elmslie; he’s our landlord, and he has several men working in his nursery. One of them might have a boy out of a job; or they might know somebody.”

“The village will soon get used to us. We’re working women, and looks don’t matter,” Rena said. “Thanks for the tip. We’ll try the landlord first.”

When breakfast was over, the working women pulled their slouch hats well down on their curls, so that red and yellow alike were hidden, and tramped away through puddles and light rain to look for their assistant. Rosamund watched them go, then laughed and turned to her housework; and was touched and amused to find that her guests had made their beds and left their rooms in order.

“Bricks! I shall thank them for this. I’m sure Rena would rather have read Mary-Dorothy’s book. It was jolly of her to save me trouble.”

“Your landlord’s away in London,” was Rena’s greeting, as she came in hungrily to a very good lunch. “But his foreman put me on to a boy who will do very well. Look what I found for you in a sunny corner of the woods! It’s absurd, of course; but it was a sheltered spot.”

She held out a handful of wild hyacinths, just beginning to open.

Rosamund gave a cry of delight. “The first I’ve seen! It’s very early for them. I knew there were primroses.”

“Millions. But these are the first bluebells. I thought they’d look so jolly in one of the blue pots from your room.”

“I’ve been longing for the first bluebells, so that I could put them in a blue jar,” Rosamund confessed. “I’ve only had those blue pots since June, so I haven’t seen bluebells in them yet. Thanks so much for thinking of me.” And she ran up to fetch a beautifully-shaped vase of purple blue, and placed some of the flowers in it on a little table, with a background of yellow wall.

“The rest must go in the grey room upstairs,” she said. “Thank you, Drena!”

About five o’clock the working women came down the lane and turned into the courtyard of The Squirrel House, tired and ready for tea. But among the tables and basket chairs of the forecourt Rena stopped and jerked out an exclamation, for in the doorway under the Squirrel sign a stranger stood staring at them.

“We aren’t open for business yet,” she said. “You can get tea at the inn, next door.”

Rena looked at her with amused eyes. She was a girl of perhaps eighteen, or younger, with wavy fair hair cut short, and she wore a big cretonne overall of lavender and green. Her blue eyes were shy, but she faced the intruders bravely.

“I know we aren’t open,” Rena agreed in a confidential tone. “But we happen to be staying here. We’ve come home to tea.”

“Staying here? You can’t be!” the girl cried. “Rosamund would never let you stay!”

“Rosamund did, all the same. I slept in her bed last night,” Rena said cheerfully. “Is she out?”

“She doesn’t seem to be anywhere about,” said Lisabel. “I wonder who——? She didn’t say she had any sisters!”

“Only aunts and a stepmother and a brother,” Rena added, eyeing the new girl curiously. “Won’t you introduce yourself? You look very much at home.”

“It’s my house,” the girl protested.

“You can’t be the stepmother!” Rena argued. “What or who are you?”

The shy face broke into a sudden laugh. “I’m an aunt.”

“Not Rosamund’s aunt?” Rena cried, while Lisabel stared blankly.

“But I am. I’m her Aunt Elspeth.”

“My spades and shovels!” Rena exclaimed. “And I’ve been talking about ‘the old ladies’! Then it’s for you she’s going to weave the green and lavender frock! But how lovely to have a little aunt like you!”

“How can you be her aunt?” Lisabel demanded. “You’re much younger than she is!”

“I’m eighteen, and she’s twenty-three. Her father married my sister. He was sixty, and Eleanor was the same age as Rosamund. Ros hated it; she hates having a stepmother no older than herself.”

“How horrid for her!” Rena exclaimed. “And are the other aunts as young as you?”

“There’s only Audrey. No, she’s older; Eleanor came between us. But why do you say you’re staying here? Oh, is that why Ros has been sleeping in my bed? I saw her things in my room.”

“She said she’d borrowed her Aunt Elspeth’s bed.” Rena explained their presence briefly. “She’s been most tremendously kind to us. We quite understand it’s only for two nights. Haven’t you seen her yet? She wasn’t expecting you, was she?”

“She was out when I arrived. We decided in a hurry that I should come home to-day, and Audrey and Eleanor will bring the baby to-morrow. I wanted to give Ros a surprise; there’s some great news, and I want to be the one to tell her.” Elspeth’s eyes were important and her cheeks were flushed.

Rena laughed in sympathy. “And you haven’t told her yet? Hard lines!”

“I expect she’s shopping. She’ll need extra things for Eleanor and the baby. I was going to do some weeding till she comes.”

“Is the weeding your job? That explains the pretty pinafore. We’ll help you when we’ve had some tea. We’re gardeners, you know; that’s why we have these boots.”

“And breeches,” Lisabel added.

Elspeth’s eyes had been on their costume. She smiled shyly. “I expect you’re hungry. Gardening makes me hungry. Do you know what Ros was going to give you for tea?”

“Just bread and butter,” Rena said solemnly. “She gave us a big lunch and said we should have a big supper.”

Elspeth laughed. “I put the kettle on, for her tea. I could get yours. Will you have it out here?”

“Yes, please. But we’ll help; we’ll come and forage. We know where——”

“There’s Ros!” and Elspeth darted past them to the gate.

Rosamund, conscious that she was late and that her guests would be waiting, leapt off a green bus outside The Dragon and raced towards The Squirrel House. Then her cry of surprise rang cut.

“Elspeth! My dear kid, what’s brought you home a day too soon? And you’ve found me out!”—at sight of Rena and Lisabel in the courtyard. “I meant to have them safely at The Dragon before you came.”

“Oh, Ros!” Elspeth had hurled herself on her tall niece. “Oh, Ros! Such a weird thing! Audrey’s engaged!”

“What?” Rosamund dropped half her parcels and stood staring at her. “Elspeth Abbott, what do you mean?”

“Audrey’s going to be married; quite soon! Isn’t it weird? I don’t know how the Squirrel will get on without her!”

“Goodness gracious me!” and Rosamund gazed as if she really thought Elspeth were demented. “But how? She wasn’t engaged three days ago. She never said a word—I’m certain she wasn’t thinking of anybody! Elspeth, who is he?”

“She wasn’t; she didn’t know she cared. But when he asked her she says she woke up and then she knew she’d cared for ages.”

“Elspeth, I shall shake you! Who is it?”

“Mr Elmslie,” Elspeth said, with dancing eyes. “But we’re to call him Charles.”

“Mr Elmslie—the landlord!” Rosamund gasped. Then she broke into a laugh. “Oh well, Audrey can let us off the rent! They’ve been friends for years, of course.”

“Yes, but neither of them dreamt of anything more,” Elspeth explained eagerly. “Then we went away to Malta, and he found he couldn’t do without her. As soon as he heard she was in London he rushed off to tell her he’d found out he cared, and to ask her to marry him. She says she hadn’t thought about him in that way, but when she found how much he cared she began to think she cared too. How do you think the Squirrel will manage, Ros?”

“The Squirrel will be all right. The Squirrel has me,” Rosamund proclaimed. “You and I will run the Squirrel, Elspeth, my dear.”

“I hoped you’d say that. But there’s your shop as well. And now there’s baby.”

“And Eleanor! Roderic belongs to her, after all. This marrying business is very upsetting,” Rosamund sighed. “It’s very much overdone. I hope the germ will never attack me! Everything has to go overboard. Here are all our plans upset, just because Audrey and her landlord—bother ‘Charles’! Elspeth, he ought to present you with The Squirrel House, as compensation.”

“Perhaps he will. He’s nice, Ros. I’m going to like him. And Audrey’s very happy; it’s jolly for her.”

“Just fancy Audrey!” Rosamund mourned. “And I thought she was so strong-minded! Oh well, let’s have tea! These poor working women are starving. Fly round, Elspeth—why, it’s all ready!” as she entered The Squirrel House. “Somebody’s been a brick.”

“It must be your little aunt,” said Rena. “We haven’t been indoors yet. I’ll dash off and wash, and then I’ll help.”

“Fancy Elspeth thinking of that!” Rosamund marvelled.

“You needn’t be rude to your aunt,” Rena retorted, looking back from the bathroom door.

Elspeth had reddened. “I don’t always think,” she admitted. “But I knew you’d want your tea.”

“Did you go up to your room, and did you say, ‘Who’s been sleeping in my bed?’—like Baby Bear?” Rosamund asked, as she brought two more cups and plates to the table. “We’ll have tea all together. I suppose nobody minds? These two almost belong to the family, Aunt Elspeth.”

As she cut more bread and butter in the kitchen she gave Elspeth a quick account of the evening before and of the desertion of Mrs Davy.

“She couldn’t help it, but it did leave me stranded. I didn’t mind being alone, but I thought Audrey might not like it.”

“It was awfully jolly for you that they turned up. But you could have ’phoned from the village for Miss Devine or Maidlin, Ros! They’d have motored over for the night.”

“But they’re still so thrilled with Biddy Verdier and her daughter; I couldn’t tear Maid away from Madelon Marie. Oh, you haven’t heard; it was only the day before yesterday. Mary’s little sister has come from France, bringing a fascinating baby daughter, and the whole Abbey crowd is worshipping the French infant. I’ll tell you the story later. I couldn’t ask Mary to leave Biddy, and Maid wouldn’t have been much protection, would she?”

“She’d have been company. But these girls would do instead. What are their names, Ros?”

“Andrew and Liza,” said Rena. “I haven’t changed, Rosamund. I’m going to weed your garden after tea, to save your little aunt. I’ll change and be a lady for supper. I’m a champion weeder! You and your aunt will want to talk about the wedding.”

“The wedding!” Rosamund exclaimed. “I hadn’t begun to think about the wedding! I suppose there will have to be a wedding sooner or later!”

“Your elder aunt evidently thinks so,” Rena agreed.

Elspeth’s eyes went from her to Lisabel. They had thrown off their hats and the change in their appearance left her breathless.

“The golliwogs!” Rena said solemnly. “Aunt Elspeth’s stunned. Doesn’t Elisabel look a different creature?”

“So do you,” Elspeth retorted shyly. “You don’t look like boys any more.”

Rena laughed. “I’m a starving golliwog; a hungry lad! Rosamund’s home-made jam will disappear. You must put up your terms, Rose Lady!”

“I shall have to change my bed again, I suppose,” Rosamund grumbled. “Must you have your own room, Aunty?”

“I’ll sleep in Audrey’s bed; she won’t mind. To-morrow we’ll all move round and get right again,” Elspeth said.

“And Lisabel and I will have to go to The Dragon!” Rena mourned. “It will be a real blow, after The Squirrel House!”

“You said you’d tell us your dream,” Rena challenged Rosamund when, after a strenuous evening of weeding on the part of the gardeners and of housework for the ‘domestic staff,’ as Rosamund and Elspeth described themselves, they all four sat round the fire in The Rose House, to talk for an hour before going to bed.

Rosamund laughed. “Aunt Elspeth doesn’t know about it yet. It’s a dream of the future that I’ve had while I’ve been here alone. The Squirrel garden has a little gate leading into the woods, as you’ve observed, no doubt. But this house has a gate opening out of its garden, too, and there’s a tiny wee path, all overgrown, leading along by my fence to a tumble-down cottage behind The Dragon. It belongs to Mr Elmslie——”

“Charles!” said Elspeth. “You’d better get used to it, Ros.”

“To Charles,” Rosamund agreed. “At some time or other it must have belonged to these cottages, and that’s why there’s a path between them. Now the whole property belongs to—to Charles! I want it to be all one place again. The cottage is in an awful mess, but it could be repaired, and it has a biggish room and a kitchen, and little attics with dormer windows, like ours. I wanted Audrey to take it, and make it into an annexe to The Squirrel House. We could let the attics to boarders—like these two people!—instead of sending them to The Dragon, and they could come here for meals. And the big room could be for teas, leaving this room to be my shop and young Roderic’s nursery. It’s only a dream, but it would make The Rose and Squirrel a much jollier place—so much more complete. We’re going to be cramped for space when Eleanor comes.”

“You’ll have more room when your other aunt is married, though,” Rena suggested.

“I hadn’t considered Audrey’s marriage, of course.”

“Perhaps the landlord will give you the annexe as a wedding present.”

“I like that old cottage,” Elspeth said, “but I don’t see how we could look after it, Ros. If Audrey goes away we shall have too much to do with the Squirrel, as well as your shop and the garden, and Eleanor and baby.”

“We shall have to launch out and engage assistants, and become employers of labour,” Rosamund said with enthusiasm. “What about the home-made-cake business Audrey was going to start, and the little delivery van you were to drive?”

“You have large schemes! You mean to go ahead and make a real big thing of your Rose and Squirrel!” Rena said in approval.

“Oh, don’t let us get too big! I like it better as it is.” Elspeth shrank from the thought of developments so overwhelming. “Isn’t it enough, with the teas and the cakes for sale, and all the fruit in the summer and the jam and jelly to make? We were busy enough last year! If you have all that, and your own shop, and Roderic, isn’t it plenty?”

“It sounds a lot too much,” said Lisabel. “I think she’s right. Why do you want to branch out?”

“Lisabel, I could stifle you! Why are you such a wet blanket?” Rena exclaimed.

Rosamund sighed mockingly, and rose and stood looking down at the other three in the firelight. “Lisabel and Elspeth speak with the voice of common-sense. You and I are ambitious and we like to take chances, Drena. We have to be crushed by the wisdom of our juniors.”

“Wisdom! Funk!” said Rena. “I don’t know Aunt Elspeth very well, but I do know Lisabel Durrant, and she funks every single thing she can. I hope you’ll get your cottage and your help to run it; and I hope some day I’ll come and sleep in it.”

“Biddy Verdier might be invited to be warden of the annexe for a year or two. She’s out of a job,” Rosamund remarked. “She could look after Madelon Marie and young Roderic together. What a ripping idea!”

“I’m going to bed,” said Elspeth. “I don’t want crowds of people here, Ros; not to live. We’ll have Eleanor to-morrow, and that will be bad enough.”

“I thought she was your sister?” Rena asked curiously.

“She is my sister. Why? She won’t fit in here; Audrey and I know that quite well. She isn’t a bit keen to come. She was bored before she went away, and she only did what she couldn’t help in the way of work. She’s been to India for a year and a half, and she’s been married, and she has heaps of swanky friends. You should have seen the flowers in her cabin when we left Malta! She’ll never settle down here,” and Elspeth went through to The Squirrel House. “I’m first for the bathroom!”

“Will it be as bad as she thinks?” Rena asked.

“I shouldn’t wonder. I’m not smitten with Mrs Kane. She thinks of herself first and last and all the way through,” Rosamund said.

“She’ll have to think of the child now.”

“Perhaps.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ll see,” and Rosamund would say no more.

Rena appeared early next morning to report sadly that the suitcases were packed and ready to go to the inn.

“You did arrange with Mrs George that we could have rooms looking this way, so that we can gaze down into the courtyard and remember our happy days at The Rose and Squirrel, didn’t you?” she pleaded pathetically.

“How sentimental!” Rosamund laughed at her as she stirred the porridge pan. “I made a point of it. And Mrs George will be glad if you’ll come here to meals quite often, as she’s spring-cleaning. She doesn’t want extra cooking.”

“You’ll see us every day,” Rena prophesied.

“It will be hateful at the inn,” Lisabel said, coming down from her little green room. “We shall feel far worse about it because we’ve had this for two days.”

“It’s a pity I let you come, then,” Rosamund retorted.

“Oh, I’m glad we’ve had this! It’s something to look back on! I’m only fooling, Rose Lady. We know we have to clear out and leave this for your relations,” Rena cried. “We aren’t grousing really; at least, I’m not!”

“Lisabel means it, though. That’s the difference between them,” Rosamund murmured into the pan, as she dished the porridge.

Rena ran up to fetch her case, and, to prove her high spirits at the prospect of a lodging at The Dragon, came down whistling cheerfully.

Rosamund dropped her stirring-spoon with a clatter on the stone floor.

“Rena Mackay! ‘Trunkles!’ Are you a folk-dancer? Was that ‘Christchurch Bells’ you were singing in your bath last night?”

“Probably.” Rena put down the heavy case and stared at her. “Do you dance? I haven’t done a great deal, and none for some years. Working women can’t spare time for Vacation Schools. But I did a little when I was a kid; some country-dances, and a morris jig or two. Then by great good luck I had a week at a Christmas School in London, and I learnt ‘Rigs’ and ‘Trunkles’ and a lot more country. The tunes are very sticky.”

“They are. I wonder you haven’t heard me at some of them. I’ve been to several Schools; all our crowd are very keen. I’ve done quite a lot of dancing.”

“Have you, by any chance, your silver badge?” Rena demanded. “You said you’d had ‘some training’ in cookery, and later we found that meant a first-class diploma. Does ‘quite a lot of dancing’ mean an Advanced Certificate?”

Rosamund laughed. “Only Advanced Country. I haven’t done nearly enough morris for the silver badge. Cheers! I’m so glad you’re a folk-dancer! We’ll share experiences some day. I’d like to hear what you did and who taught you and all the rest of it.”

“I learned morris in this rig-out,” Rena said. “A girl at school taught me. She came from London and knew a heap about it.”

“In boots?” Rosamund asked, laughing.

“And breeches and a khaki tunic. I felt like a morris man.”

“I’m sure you did! I must hear all about it quite soon,” and Rosamund brought the bowls of porridge to the Squirrel front room.

After a morning’s hard work, Rena and Lisabel lunched at The Squirrel House, and demanded their bill for board and lodging. They studied it together when Rosamund had laid it before them and retired, and then looked at one another.

“Jolly cheap,” said Lisabel.

“Does she mean it for one or both of us?” Rena exploded. “I say, Lady Rose! You’ll end in the Bankruptcy Court!”

Rosamund leaned out of a dormer window and laughed down at them. “One doesn’t make money out of friends. It’s enough to pay for your food and laundry. You’ve paid for the service by the pleasure your company has given.”

Rena rose and took off her hat and flourished it in a ceremonious bow. “Madame Juliet, you deserve to go to the workhouse.”

“Monsieur Romeo, I don’t intend to do anything of the kind. I’m satisfied, so you ought to be.”

Rena looked at the modest bill and did a careful sum. “I’m not particularly good at maths; never was. But if I can work out what half as much again would be, I should think that would be about right. It might enrage you if I doubled it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Drena Mackay! I know what you’ve cost me!”

Rena nodded. “All right, old dear. Then we can’t come here to meals any more. We’ll have to feed entirely at The Dragon, and that will be a blow to Mrs George and a frightful bore for us. We were looking forward to lunch and tea with the Squirrels every day. But we can’t come if we feel we’re robbing you.”

“Rena, that’s absurd! Of course you’ll come.”

Rena sat down, cocking one knee over the other in a boyish fashion, and taking out a pencil began to make calculations on the back of the bill.

“Don’t be silly, Rena,” Lisabel remonstrated. “She knows what she ought to charge. You’ll only make her mad.” Then she shouted, “Look out, Drena!”

Rena looked up, and sprang aside, as a pillow came hurtling out of the window and fell just where her head had been.

“Oh, Juliet!” she said reproachfully. “What a tomboy! How very young! Positively infantile!”

“Well, be sensible, then!” Rosamund blazed.

Rena sat on the pillow and went on with her arithmetic. “Don’t distract me. Sums were never my strong point.”

“Common sense isn’t your strong point, either,” Rosamund retorted. “If you insist on paying more than I ask, you’ll ruin the friendly feeling that’s been so jolly. Can’t you see that?”

Rena looked up, and her face was serious. “I see it. But if I feel you haven’t charged us fairly you ruin it just as certainly, and I can’t come back. It seems a great pity. I want to come back, but I can’t do it on these terms. You aren’t being fair. I have some self-respect as well as you.”

There was a pause, while they looked at one another. “She means it. She won’t come back,” Rosamund said to herself. “I know I’ve under-charged, but I wanted to do it. I like them; and I don’t like being bullied.”

She was used to having her own way, and it went sorely against the grain to surrender. But Rena’s face was extremely firm.

“You’re a horrid bully, Romeo! Split the difference, and don’t be a pig,” Juliet said at last.

Rena sighed. “It makes a ghastly sum. I can’t do it; it’s beyond me.”

“Oh no, it isn’t! Divide by four instead of by two, that’s all. Quarter as much again. That’s the utmost limit I’ll go to; and I hate giving in. You’re a frightful bully.”

“That’s true,” Lisabel remarked. “She’s bullied me for years.”

“And always for your good,” Rena added. “There, Miss Rose Shop! That’s what I intend to pay, and here’s the cash. Those are my terms!”

Rosamund came slowly down to receipt the bill. “I don’t like you, Andrena Mackay.”

“Put the extra in the missionary box,” Rena suggested. “Don’t be an ass! It’s worth sacrificing your feelings for the sake of being friends. May we come to tea? Or will you be too busy with aunts and babies?”

“We were going on the hills, Rena,” Lisabel reminded her.

“So we were. I’m pining to reach that clump on the top. There must be a ripping view. Will you give us a large supper, ma’am? Your relations will have settled down by then.”

Rosamund nodded; she was still feeling sore at being beaten. “What time?”

“Seven, thanks.” Rena looked at her; then she took her by the shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Didn’t you know you hadn’t charged us properly? Didn’t you do it on purpose? Don’t you know I’m right? Haven’t you an evil conscience? Very well, then!” as Rosamund’s defiant eyes fell. “Don’t quarrel with me when you know I’m right. Good-bye for the present!”

She tramped away with Lisabel to The Dragon, and Rosamund soberly loaded a tray and carried the dishes indoors.

“Ros, what a jolly girl she is!” Elspeth exclaimed.

“You were listening, I suppose! I like having my own way,” Rosamund grumbled.

“But you have such an awful lot of it!” Elspeth argued. “Does it matter for once, Ros?”

Rosamund gave her a sharp look. “Is that cheek? The more I have it the more I want it, kid.”

“Some things are like that!” Elspeth sighed.

“Rena, a taxi at the gate of the Squirrel!” called Lisabel, and came into Rena’s room. “Do you suppose it’s the rest of the family?”

“Sure to be,” Rena turned from the suitcase she was unstrapping. “I want to see the stepmother. Keep behind the curtain so that they won’t see us. There’s no harm in watching, and they know our windows look that way. But I don’t want to irritate Rosamund any more just at present.”

They kept out of sight to watch the arrival, but with wide-open windows could hear all that was said.

Rosamund and Elspeth came running out to welcome the travellers. The driver opened the door, and a girl, some years older than Rosamund, stepped out very carefully, carrying a baby.

“That’s the other aunt. She’s the image of Elspeth,” Rena murmured. “And Roderic, I presume! Where’s the stepmother?”

Audrey thrust the baby into Rosamund’s eager arms. “There! Take him. He’s yours. I know you’ve been wanting him.”

“Audrey! Where’s Eleanor?”

“Gone off to Devonshire.”

“Devonshire! But why? What’s happened? Elspeth didn’t tell me——”

“I didn’t know. I never heard a word about Devonshire. But I hope Eleanor will stay there,” Elspeth cried.

“She had a letter last night, after Elspeth had left.” Audrey, with a weary gesture, pulled off her close-fitting hat and showed wavy fair hair, cut short and making her look more like Elspeth than ever. “It was from people she’d known in India; very great friends, I judged. They begged her to go down to their place near Torquay, to recruit and get up her strength. She said she must go; she must keep in with them; they’d be offended if she refused. But she couldn’t take baby; she was quite firm about that. And anyway, Rosamund would be disappointed! So she sent him to you, and she’ll come presently.”

“So she says,” said Rosamund, and hushed young Roderic, who was hungry and wanted to say so. “All right, my lamb! He shall have his early tea in five minutes. If his mummy won’t look after him there’s a big sister ready to do it!”

She carried him into The Squirrel House, and Audrey and Elspeth and the man followed, laden with suitcases. Then the taxi drove away, and the only sign of the invasion was Roderic’s hungry wail, as he waited for his bottle to be warmed.

Rena turned to Lisabel. “Let’s go off to the hills. They’ve no time for us at present. Miss Abbott—as we haven’t been invited to call her Audrey!—will have settled down by the evening, and she’ll know all about us. We’d be too much of a shock if we appeared now, though I’d like to go in and sympathise about that rotten stepmother.”

“Do you think she doesn’t mean to come here?”

“It looks as if she didn’t want to, and would take any excuse to escape. Remember all that Elspeth said about her—married, and had a good time in India, and heaps of swish friends. Add to that a visit to a country house in Devonshire, no doubt very posh, with cars and everything. Is she likely to settle down in that little back room you slept in? I ask you, Liza, is it likely?”

“Not very. But she ought to look after her own kid.”

“That’s why she’s a rotter. She’ll try to dump him on Rosamund. I believe Rosamund’s expecting it.”

“It’s a dirty trick,” said Lisabel. “Are you going to change into a frock to go up on the hills?”

“My boots and breeches, no! Far more comfy like this. We may get bogged, or have to plunge through heather or fern, or climb gates.”

Lisabel agreed, and they set out in their working garb, crossing the main road and entering the fields by a stile, from which a path led towards more woods and so to the hills.

It was a long pull up to the beech ring on the crest, but they reached it at last, and lay, hot and silent, in the shade, gazing out over a wide stretch of wooded country, fading into blue haze. Lisabel pulled her hat over her eyes and went to sleep. Rena lay, with sprawling boyish legs and uncovered yellow curls, for a time.

Then she sat up, and was sitting gazing and frowning at the distance when Lisabel woke and sat up also, shaking back her ruddy halo. She glanced at Rena, and after a time ventured on a question.

“What’s up, Drena?”

“Nothing. I was thinking.” Rena crossed her knees and balanced her hat on them and frowned at it.

“It’s different from our moors at home,” Lisabel suggested. “Think of the Edge, and the rocks above our house, and the view over the dale!”

“Yes.”

Lisabel shot another look at her. “What is it, Rena? Don’t be a pig!”

“It isn’t anything,” Rena sighed. “Nothing that can be helped. Shall we go on?”

“Is it Rex?”

“Of course. Don’t be daft. Isn’t Rex the only thing that worries me? The boy’s an awful tease.”

“You shouldn’t let him worry you. You’ve told him how you feel. Why can’t you stick to it?”

“I’m sticking to it all right. Rex doesn’t mean anything. He’s only fooling about, as usual. I’ve told him so often.”

“What’s making you think of him, then?” Lisabel demanded. “I don’t feel so sure that he isn’t in earnest. If you think he’s fooling, why do you go on thinking about him?”

“Rosamund and that kid made me think about Rex. That girl has everything. She has her own house and all her pretty things, and now she’s even got a baby to play with. Any girl would like to have just what she has. But she’s been able to keep her job and go on in all her own ways, without the trouble of a husband who would interfere with everything.”

“That strikes me as absurd,” Lisabel said. “Most people want the husband first and the rest afterwards.”

“I don’t. I’d like just what Rosamund has—my house, and my own ways—my freedom, in fact—and my job that I love, and a baby dropped into my arms by a miracle. But I’ve no desire to be married. I feel it means giving up too much.”

“But you’d get things in exchange,” Lisabel argued. “And Rex Courtney seems to be crazy to give them to you. I think you’re an idiot.”

“I’m not. I don’t want to give up my job. I’ve earned my living—with our dear lady boss’s help, of course—since I was sixteen. I don’t want to give up the feeling of being independent. I don’t want to be Mrs Courtney and spend my time darning Rex’s socks, or anybody else’s.”

“Ass!” said Lisabel. “I wish Rex would ask me.”

Rena knit her brows. “Well, why not? You’d make a jolly couple. He’s three years younger than either of us, but I know you think that doesn’t matter. I think it does.”

“If Rex asks me I shall have him,” Lisabel retorted. “So you’d better not refuse him too often. He won’t put up with it for ever.”

“My dear Liza, Rex doesn’t mean anything. It’s all his idea of a joke. We’ll go on now,” and Rena sprang up, crushing her hat down on her curls. “I didn’t climb all those hundreds of feet just to sit at the top and think about Rex. I shall talk to Rosamund—not about Rex, who is a silly infant, but about marriage, and see if she thinks there’s anything in it.”

“I don’t like the way you talk about Rex,” Lisabel protested.

“You’d better marry him and teach him some sense. He’s just a schoolboy at present.—Let’s see what it’s like up here!”

A tramp round the ring of trees showed them a view of rolling downs, with the sea glistening in the distance, and a great treeless hollow opening almost at their feet. Paths ran in all directions, each green way looking more tempting than the last.

“Sheep over there,” said Lisabel. “I wonder what they do for water? There isn’t a stream anywhere. It’s odd, after our moors.”

“Chalk downs,” said Rena. “Let’s have a look at those woods.”

The broad track running eastward led them by the side of a big dewpond, and Lisabel’s question was answered, but only by raising others.

“Who made it? What fills it? Where does the water come from? There’s no stream,” she argued.

“We’ll ask the people at the Squirrel,” Rena suggested, and tramped on across the turf towards the woods which clothed the northern slope.

They took a cart road which led down through the woods, when at last hunger drove them from the hills, and after a tiring walk through lanes round the foot of the downs, turned in at The Rose and Squirrel just before seven.

“Oh, dearie me! I wish we were going to sleep here!” Rena sighed. “My spades and trowels! How I like this place!”

Audrey Abbott came out from The Squirrel House to greet them, her eyes full of amusement at Rena’s exclamation.

“I’m glad Rosamund made you so comfortable! I have orders that you’re to have the best and the biggest tea I can produce. Will you have it out here?”

“Oh, please! Are you annoyed that we slept in your house for two nights?”

“But you didn’t. You slept in the Rose, I understand. It was very good of you to keep Rosamund company.”

“Hasn’t she time to speak to us? I said she’d have no time for anybody once that infant arrived. Can’t we see him?”

“Why, yes, if you want to, certainly. Not everybody is interested in babies. Rosamund is giving him his bath, up in her room.”

“Which was my room till this morning. I know the way; may I go up? Yes, I hear her!” and Rena ran up the steep narrow stairs.

Rosamund’s voice rang out:

“You would sing that, of course.” Rena stood in the doorway and looked at her. “What a scrap! He won’t be ‘a man and fit to take a wife’ for some time, that one won’t.”

Rosamund was sitting with a big basin on the floor before her, a rubber apron tied over her blue smock. Her lap was full of a big soft towel; she cuddled something in it and looked at Rena over a small damp yellow head.

“Don’t you wish you were me? He hasn’t ever had a daddy, poor lamb. But his sister’s going to make it up to him. Shut the door, Aunty. He hasn’t any clothes on, not any at all.”

Rena laughed and closed the door, and sat on the bed to watch the drying and clothing of Roderic.

“Are you really so awfully keen on him?”

“Frightfully. He’s my only family. He’s my one and only close relation.”

“He’s only a ‘step’!”

“What’s a ‘step,’ between Roderic and me? He’s my brother, and I mean to keep him. Let’s hope his mother will stay in Devonshire! I can do all he needs; I looked after him on the journey from Malta. He was born in Malta, poor mite.”

“Why ‘poor mite’?” Rena asked, laughing.

“It doesn’t seem like coming into a home. Born in a hospital in Malta, poor scrap! If Eleanor had wanted she could have been here, and he’d have been a Rose and Squirrel baby.”

“He’ll be a Rose and Squirrel baby all right.”

“I hope so. He loves his new bath. Now he’s going to love his new cradle.”

“He doesn’t sound as if he loved anything at present, even you,” said Rena, as Roderic gave a lusty yell.

“He’s hungry. You’d be hungry if you’d come all the way from Malta and were only six weeks old. Don’t you think he’s very forward for six weeks?”

Rena laughed. “I haven’t the slightest idea. I’ve had nothing to do with babies.”

“Oh, I’ve had heaps. Lots of experience. But I mustn’t compare him with our twins. They were tiny, but then there were two of them. They’ve grown fast enough since. All the same, I’m sure Roderic is a fine child now. He was small at first, and a bit weakly,” Rosamund admitted grudgingly. “But he’s picking up fast.”

“He’ll pick up still faster now that he’s safely here.”

“Oh, rather! It’s so hard to feed a kid on a journey. We had an awful time till we found the right food for him,” Rosamund said maternally, as she laid Roderic in a wooden cradle of dark oak, with high carved sides and ends. “Now, my lamb, he shall have his bottle in two minutes. It’s all ready. Rock him gently, Rena, and never mind his yelling. Shows he has a healthy appetite.”

Rosamund ran down to the kitchen for the bottle, and Roderic’s cries ceased as she knelt beside him holding it to his lips.

“He’ll be spoiled,” said Rena.

“No, he won’t. He’s going to be brought up beautifully, if I have any say in the matter.”

“You’ll insist on having your say.”

“Can’t, if Eleanor won’t agree,” and Rosamund’s face clouded. “He’s hers. I’m hoping she’ll give him to me, but if she doesn’t we shall fight about him all the time. I won’t see him spoilt without a struggle.”

“Would she spoil him?”

“Smack him one minute and give him what he wants the next second,” Rosamund said tersely. “I’ve seen her. She’ll ruin him before he’s six months old. She won’t be worried, so he’ll get everything he wants by yelling for it. Ghastly! I’ll save him somehow.”

“I believe you will!” Rena exclaimed. “Is she really as silly and selfish as that?”

“She’s the limit. And—it’s too awful and absurd—she’s my stepmother! I shall put poison in her tea,” Rosamund groaned. “Talking about tea aren’t you starving?”

“I thought I was,” Rena admitted. “Lisabel’s hard at work; she’s always had babies—too many of them. I must go down, or there’ll be no ham and eggs left. Where did you find this lovely cradle? I haven’t seen it before. Did you come across it in an old curiosity shop?”

“No, it’s borrowed. It arrived by car this morning, while you were working. I begged for it when I went home on Wednesday.”

“Does it belong to the twins?”

“No, theirs was too big. I hadn’t room here for a double cradle, and there’s only one Roderic. I borrowed Rosemary Jane’s, from the Manor. She’s nearly a year old, so she’s promoted to a cot. Jenny-Wren has promised faithfully not to have another baby to put in the cradle until young Roderic has grown out of it. It is a beauty, isn’t it? I’ve always loved Jen’s cradle.—What’s the matter? What have I said to make you look like that?”

Rena was staring at her, tea forgotten. “Jen? Jenny-Wren? You don’t—you can’t mean Jen Robins, from The Grange? I forget her married name.”

Rosamund laid down the bottle and rose, and stood gazing at her. “Rena Mackay, have I known you for two days and not found out that you know Jenny-Wren? The Grange is her old home; I’ve been there to visit her, during her father’s illness. But I never heard of you! Who are you? What have you to do with The Grange?”

Rena laughed out in her excitement. “Perhaps you came when we were at college. I haven’t seen Jen for years; she was sixteen when we knew her—at the time of her bad accident at the Vacation School. Rocklands, where we work for Mrs Thorburn, is some way from The Grange, across the moors.”

“You knew Jen before I did!” Rosamund exclaimed. “It was nearly a year after her accident that I went to live at the Hall with Joy, and Jen was staying there. Neither of them was even engaged at that time; Jen’s only two years older than I am, and I was fifteen. Well, how weird!” and she sat on her bed and stared at Rena. “Is it really true?”

“You remember the wee boy who died, that I told you about? Jen danced morris jigs for him.”

“I’ve heard about that—and the ugly jumper—and the Basque pipe!” Rosamund cried. “It is true! I couldn’t believe it was really our Jen you knew. Then the garden you take care of—that’s where the girls’ school comes every summer?”

“That’s it. Jen came and criticised our dancing, and I danced my jig to her—in my boots and legs. She said my morris was like a man’s.”

Rosamund bent over the cradle again. “This is very thrilling! We’re old friends, and we didn’t know. Won’t you go and have your tea, and I’ll come in two minutes and we’ll share it all with Lisabel? Does she know Jen too?”

“Yes, Liza was there. She was in the adventure of the Basque pipe. What is Jen’s name now? I remember her with two long plaits, but those were cut off when she came home after her time in hospital and she had little yellow curls all over her head.”

“She’s Lady Marchwood now, but she still has the curls. These are her kiddies; two boys and the baby girl. Didn’t I tell you their names? Andrew, and Tony, and Rosemary Jane.” Rosamund showed a big photo, which hung on the wall.

“No; you said, ‘the babes at the Manor—cousins of the twins,’ and I never thought of asking questions. The boys are like Jenny-Wren,” and Rena gave her back the photo and went down to tell the news to Lisabel.

“Don’t you want to see Jen again?” Rosamund asked, coming out to the forecourt and sitting on the arm of a chair near them, when Roderic was happily fed and asleep.

“Oh, could we? How could we see her? I wonder if she’d remember us? It’s eight years ago,” Rena said wistfully.

“She’s often told me the story of those schoolgirls, and all that happened. She’ll remember when she sees you.”

“Especially if we go to see her in these suits!”

“Oh, she’ll be here in a day or two.”

“Here?” Rena cried. “Do you mean that she’ll come here?”

“She’ll come to see Roderic in her cradle,” Rosamund explained. “They’re all wild to see my brother.”

“Oh, could we see her when she comes?” Rena pleaded. “But she’ll come in the afternoon. Can you keep her till we come in?”

“She’ll want to see you. Audrey! Elspeth! Come and hear this weird news!” Rosamund called, turning to The Squirrel House. “Rena and Lisabel are old friends of Jen’s, and we never knew!”

“But we’ve only known one another for two days, and we didn’t talk over all our past history,” Lisabel remonstrated. “You only found out about the folk-dancing this morning.”

“No, we talked more about college,” Rosamund agreed. “Jen didn’t come into that.—Let me introduce you to my aunts!”

Elspeth’s shy face broke into a smile. “I think we’ve met before.”

Audrey laughed. “This is a very formal introduction. I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Mackay and Miss Durrant.”

“She is going to be married, quite soon,” Rosamund sighed. “She won’t give up the idea. I’ve been pleading with her all the afternoon.”

“Ragging me, you mean,” Audrey retorted, colouring a little as Rena’s eyes fell on the diamond ring she wore.

“You ought to sacrifice yourself for the sake of Elspeth and Roderic and me. How’s the Squirrel going to carry on without you? You are the Squirrel!”

“You’ll have Eleanor in my place.”

“Eleanor!” The scorn in Elspeth’s voice was intense.

“I doubt it,” said Rosamund. “Even if my stepmother condescends to stay here, she’ll be no use. She’ll never take your place, old thing.”

“She never was much use. Audrey did it all, while I was at school, even when Eleanor was at home,” Elspeth said. “She won’t wash up and cut bread and butter now; and as for making cakes, she couldn’t do it.”

“What’s all this about being old friends?” Audrey asked. “Have you been making discoveries?”

“Oh, my dear, they knew Jenny-Wren before I did!” Rosamund cried. “Isn’t it absurd? They’re older friends than I am!”

“I wouldn’t claim that,” Rena said, laughing. “We knew Jen as a schoolgirl, Miss Abbott, but we haven’t seen her for eight years. Her old home is quite near the place where our real job is, but she hasn’t been there, except for short visits, for years, and we haven’t happened to meet her. We’ve been away to college; and besides, we’re working women! We don’t have time for paying calls. Even if she’d come to see Mrs Thorburn we wouldn’t come across her. I’m pining to see her again.”

“She’ll come, when she hears you are here.”

“She’ll come without that,” Rosamund remarked. “She’ll come to see young Roderic. The whole jolly crowd will come, now that he’s safely home.”

“We’d better not open for casual customers until the invasion of your people is over, Rosamund,” Audrey suggested.

“What will the tea-shop do, when you’re married?” Lisabel asked, looking at Audrey. “Rosamund will be too busy with the baby to look after it, won’t she? Elspeth couldn’t——”

“I couldn’t do it all alone,” Elspeth said at once.

“Of course not. That’s what I mean. Nobody thinks you could,” Lisabel said.

“Elspeth can do a great deal, though; more than you think,” Rosamund exclaimed. “With help we shall be able to manage. We may find somebody to come and join us; or there are girls in the village who could be trained. We’ve time to think about it; we haven’t discussed it yet. Audrey isn’t going away at once; she won’t let us down. She’ll help us to plan things before she goes.”

“Of course I shall. With help in the kitchen, you two could manage very well,” Audrey agreed, with a scathing look at Lisabel. “Elspeth is diffident enough,” she said to herself, as she carried away the plates and brought cakes and jam for Rena. “She needs self-confidence put into her all the time. Why did that silly girl need to go and say that?”

As she disappeared into the cottage, Rosamund turned to Rena. “Audrey’s man wants to help us, in return for taking her away from us. It needs thinking about. We can’t let him do that, exactly, but I’ve no doubt we shall work out something. At least we can agree when he says he won’t take rent for the house! And that will be a big help.”

“Yes, if you live rent free, it will be something,” Rena agreed. “I’m quite sure he won’t take rent from Elspeth once he’s her brother-in-law.”

“And my uncle-by-marriage! We could give up the tea business and just keep on my craft-shop. That would be easy. But we don’t want to give up the Squirrel teas.”

“Oh no!” Elspeth cried. “Ros, I’ll work desperately hard, if you’ll only be the head of the business and run things, but we must keep the Squirrel open!”

Rosamund laughed. “I say the same.—I say, Rena Mackay! Wouldn’t you like to ’phone to Jen and give her a shock?”

Rena sprang up. “I’d love it! But you haven’t the ’phone? Why haven’t you? You ought to be on the ’phone!”

“We can ring up from the village. I’ll go with you and we’ll see what Jen says. If my infant wakes, go and see if he’s all right, Elspeth, there’s a dear. But he won’t wake; he’s had a big feed and he’ll sleep till ten. If he should yell, ask Audrey to look at him, but don’t stay and rock him to sleep. He mustn’t learn to expect that!”

“Stern parent.” Rena laughed and rose. “No, I couldn’t, really,” as Audrey appeared with a tray. “I’ve eaten an enormous meal. Liza’s pining for jam and a bun, but I’m going for a walk.”

“Walk!” said Lisabel, accepting a bun. “I should let the ’phone wait, if I were you. You’ve walked all over the hills this afternoon.”

“Lazy!” Rena reproved her. “I’m not tired. I want to hear Jen shriek.”

“I haven’t had a walk all day.” Rosamund ran up to her room to glance at Roderic and throw aside her smock, and came out again wearing a big coat but no hat. “I’m ready.”

In the telephone box in the village Rosamund rang up and asked for the Manor number. “Jen’s house—Marchwood Manor,” she explained. “I’ll tell her somebody wants to speak to her, and then I’ll hand on the thing to you.”

“Don’t give me away. Let it be a shock,” Rena pleaded.

“Is that you, Jen? I want Lady Marchwood herself, please. Tell her it’s Rosamund.—A maid answered,” she said to Rena. “If you come closer you’ll hear Jen’s voice.—Hello! Is it Jenny-Wren? Ros speaking.”

“Oh—Ros! How nice of you! I’m so glad to speak to you.” It was Jen’s voice, but not the merry voice they knew. There was a catch in her breath and she broke off abruptly.

“Jen! What’s the matter?” Rosamund cried, her tone sharpened by fear. “What’s happened?”

“We’re in trouble about Tony,” Jen had pulled herself together and spoke bravely. “He’s had a fall. The doctor’s been, and he’s coming again. Of course, Tony will be all right, Ros. I know he’ll be all right. They all say he’s all right, really, and I believe they mean it. But he—he hasn’t wakened up yet, and—and it feels awful, you know. He’s such a little chap, Ros!”

“Oh—Jen! Could I come to you? Would it help?” Rosamund’s face was white. “I’ll come if you want me, Jen. Couldn’t you send the car? The others can look after Roderic.”

“You dear!” Jen exclaimed. “No, don’t come. Joy’s here; she came at once; and Mary-Dorothy. Nobody can do anything; we just have to wait. The doctor’s quite sure he’ll be all right, you know.”

“Of course he will. It couldn’t be really bad, Jen dear. Can you tell me what happened? Don’t, if it hurts too much. I’ll wait.”

“It was Andrew,” Jen’s voice shook again. “They were on the stair; they’d run on ahead of Nurse. Andrew pushed Tony, and he fell and crashed down several steps, and cut his head, and—and there’s slight concussion, so he isn’t exactly conscious yet, Ros.”

“Oh, Jenny-Wren, I am sorry! I think I ought to come.”

“You couldn’t help, dear. Andy’s awfully upset, of course, though he doesn’t understand how bad it—how bad it might have been, you know.”

Rosamund looked at Rena, her lips trembling. They both understood the frightened tortured courage of that change in the last few words.

“Whatever was Andy thinking about, Jen?”

“I’m afraid they were fighting,” Jen admitted ruefully. “You know what they are, Ros. I know we have to expect it, with two boys so close in age, but they needn’t have had a scrap half-way up the stairs! It’s the first time I’ve had any worry with any of them, and it feels awful! He’s only three, Ros!”

“Jen dear, it’s ghastly for you. But I’m sure he’ll be all right. I’ll ring up again at ten o’clock, and some one can give me the latest news. I’d like to know what the doctor says next time he comes.”

“Oh, do! We can’t ring you up, and I’ll want to tell you if he’s better. I’m sure he’ll be better by then; if he isn’t, I shall go crazy,” Jen said brokenly. “I can’t go to bed with the poor kid lying like that; I should go off my head! It’s good of you, Ros; it’s a long way to the village. Don’t get kidnapped in the dark!”

“I don’t mind. I couldn’t sleep without knowing the latest news. There’s a friend here who’ll come with me.”

“Your nice gardener boarder?”

“Yes.” Rosamund looked at Rena, with raised eyebrows. “Shall I tell her?” said her look.

Rena shook her head vigorously.

Rosamund nodded, and listened to a further question from Jen.

“Have your people arrived, Ros? Is Roderic all right?”

“Splendid. He loves your cradle; he’s asleep in it now. My dear stepmother’s gone off to Devonshire.”

“Devonshire! Gracious, what’s that for?” and Jen’s tone showed real interest, in spite of her trouble.

“To get away from young Roderic, I think. She’s parked him at the Squirrel and gone off to enjoy herself.” And Rosamund explained the sudden invitation which had tempted Eleanor from her duties.

“I hope she’ll stay away! It’s what you wanted, Ros. You’ve got Roderic!”

“Yes, but—oh well, we’ll see! It’s lovely to have him all to myself for a few days, anyway.”

“Does Audrey leave him to you entirely?”

“Absolutely. She shoved him at me and said, ‘He’s yours.’ She knew I wanted him; she won’t interfere. She’s going to be married, Jen,” and Rosamund told of Audrey’s new plans.

“I’m very glad. She’s too jolly to grow old looking after a tea-shop. Give her my love, and say I’ll come to wish her joy and to see your Roderic as soon as I can. But not for a few days, Ros. You’ll understand, won’t you?”

“Oh, Jenny-Wren, you can’t come till Tony’s better, I know. But he’ll be all right very soon, Jen. Kiddies pick up so very quickly.”

“I know—once they start. But—but he hasn’t started yet, you know, Ros,” and Jen’s voice had a quaver in it again. “The doctor can’t be quite absolutely certain, till he comes round. We can’t do anything to help him just now. That’s what is so hard, Ros. Good-night, my dear. Ken is trying to make me eat some dinner; as if I could! But I must pretend, to please him. He’s so cut up, Ros!”

“I know he must be. I wish I could help!”

“You can’t, dear. But Ken helps; and he says I’m helping him. Good-night!” and Jen rang off.

“Kenneth and she will help one another,” Rosamund said gravely, as she went down the road with Rena. “Will you come back with me at ten? It’s a very dark road; we need to carry lanterns.”

“I’m used to dark roads; I sometimes cross the moor alone at night—though not often. I want to come; I must know how the little chap is. I’m glad you didn’t mention me. Jen doesn’t want to think of trifles just now.”

“She’ll be much more pleased to hear about you in a day or two, when Tony’s better. As she says, it’s the first anxiety she’s had with any of the children. It’s very hard on her; and it’s likely to happen again,” Rosamund added. “They’re lively kids; they’re sure to have heaps of accidents. They can’t be watched all the time. I’m afraid Jenny-Wren will have a good many shocks before they’re grown-up.”

“She’s very brave. I could have cried when she said the child ‘wasn’t exactly conscious.’ It has hurt her badly,” Rena said, her voice full of pity.

They told the news to Audrey and Elspeth, and Rena sat reading in the sitting-room of The Rose House until it was nearly ten o’clock. Rosamund made her baby comfortable for the night and gave him his last bottle, and then they set out for the village again.

Kenneth Marchwood answered the call.

“There’s no news, Rosamund. We’re still waiting for the boy to wake. I’ve made Jen go and lie down; she’s worn out. She says you’re to run home and go to bed, and ring us up in the morning.”

“Can’t you tell me any more, Ken? I couldn’t tease Jen for details.”

“There’s nothing to tell.” Kenneth’s voice was hard and tense and quite unlike him. “Tony has a nasty cut on his forehead and there’s some concussion. The doctor hopes he’ll be all right; he’s sent us in a special nurse for a day or two, as the children’s Nanny has Baby on her hands. But he hopes she won’t be needed for very long. Tony may be all right once this unconsciousness passes off. I’m as much afraid for Jen as for him. She is being very brave, but it’s hurting her terribly to see the child lying like that.”

“I know. Could I help in any way, Ken?”

“Not just now, Rosamunda. Pray for good news in the morning,” and Kenneth rang off.

The girls went silently home. At the gate of The Dragon Rena paused. “I shall be thinking of Jen and Tony all night.”

Rosamund nodded, and bit her lip. She waved her hand, and hurried through the garden to The Rose House.

“No news yet,” she called to Audrey, through the open door to The Squirrel House. Then she ran up to her blue room, and dropped on her knees by Roderic’s cradle.

“Oh, Jen, my dear! If only I could help you through this night!”

“I forgot all about discussing marriage with Rosamund,” Rena remarked to Lisabel, as she said good-night. “I was far more thrilled by her baby and by finding out that she knew Jen; and then this trouble about Jen’s kiddy drove everything else out of our heads. It shows how much I care about Rex Courtney, doesn’t it?”

“Or how much you don’t care. I don’t see how you can help caring, when Rex is so keen,” and Lisabel shut her door with a disapproving bang.

“He isn’t keen, really. I care far more about Tony and Jen,” Rena said to herself, as she went to bed.

“Had a good night?” she asked, when she met Rosamund next morning.

Rosamund shook her head. “Baby was all right; it wasn’t that. He’s very good.”

They walked almost in silence to the village, and waited for the answer to their ring in keenest anxiety.

But Jen’s voice, as she called gaily, “Is it Ros? Oh, my dear, all’s well!” drove away their fears.

“Oh, Jen, I’m so glad! I’ve been thinking of you all night! Is Tony better?” Rosamund cried.

“I know; and we’ve all been sound asleep and quite happy! I’ve been so sorry I’d worried you; I’d have given anything to let you know it was all right. Ken’s coming right round to have the ’phone put in for you,” Jen vowed. “Tony woke out of that horrid state at midnight and went off to sleep properly, and they all—the nurse and the doctor and Ken—say that means everything and he’ll be quite all right now. He knew us, and he said ‘Daddy!’ and gave me the sweetest little smile as he dropped off. Ken hustled me away to bed, and I only woke up ten minutes ago; I haven’t dressed yet. But I had to speak to you myself, to apologise for giving you a bad night. I’ve felt so sorry about you, Ros!”

“Jen dear, that’s all right. If Tony’s better, nothing else matters.”

“Joy’s coming to see your Roderic to-morrow, so she’ll tell you more about Tony. I’ll come in a few days, but I must keep my eye on him till he’s really fit again. And Andy will be lost without him; he’ll need comforting.”

“Of course. I’ll ring up again at night, just to be sure you’re all going on well.”

And Rosamund and Rena went thankfully back to The Rose and Squirrel.

“Who is Joy?” Rena asked.

“The mother of the twins; you saw their picture. They live next door to Jen, at the Hall, where I lived for so many years. Joy lost her husband during the first year, so she lives in her old home, and she and Jen are both called Lady Marchwood. Jen married the younger brother and the title went to him, as both Joy’s twins are girls.”

“And they were friends before they were married? How jolly for them!”

“Jen teases Kenneth by saying she only married him so that she’d be Joy’s sister and live next door to her. But that’s only ragging; they’re devoted to one another, and Ken adores the children.”

“What do you think about getting married?”

Rosamund stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“Somebody’s asked me about a dozen times. But I don’t believe he means it, and anyway, I can’t see anything in it.”

“He’s a sensible man,” Rosamund remarked. “Why don’t you say yes?”

“Why should I? I’m having a jolly good time and getting along quite well as I am.”

“Who is he?” Rosamund asked. “You don’t care much about him, evidently.”

“I’ve told him I don’t, but he still keeps on. He’s Rex Courtney, Mrs Thorburn’s younger nephew—brother of the little boy I told you about. He’s quite a good sort, and I like him quite a lot. He says he’s been keen to ask me ever since I was sixteen and a kid at school.”

“That’s several years now. He sounds nice. Why won’t you have him?”

“Well, would you?” Rena blazed. “Would you give up your job—your craft-shop, and your house—because you liked a man? Why should I? I’ve trained for my job and I love it. I want to stick to it. Would you throw up your Rose House for a man, Rosamund Kane?”

“Not unless I loved him,” Rosamund said promptly. “That’s the trouble, Rena. If I loved a man I’d chuck everything overboard and do anything he wanted.”

“Would you? I wonder,” Rena said thoughtfully. “You seem fairly keen on your job.”

“It’s much harder for men than it used to be.” Rosamund was thinking aloud. “But, on the other hand, we have far more to give them. If we do give in, it’s more worth while.”

“You mean we have so much more to take the place of marriage?”

“Of course. In the old days a girl had no choice. She married, or she stayed at home and was dull and bored, and probably she was sat on by her parents. She married to escape from them and to have a home of her own; to be boss in her turn. But now—well, look at you! Look at me! We have everything. Why should we marry? If we do, the man knows we’re really and truly fond of him.”

“You have everything,” Rena amended. “I’d like a house of my own, and I’d love a kid to play with. You have both; you’re jolly lucky. I’d give a lot to feel I had a real home.”

“But if you work and save, you’ll have a home of your own in time. And there are always babies to be adopted. They’d be as much yours as Roderic is mine; more, for they’d look on you as their mother, while young Roderic will always know I’m only his sister.”

“Yes,” Rena said slowly. “No one need go without a family; I see that. But it isn’t quite the same.”

Rosamund paused at the gate of The Rose and Squirrel. “My dear idiot, it’s quite different. You and I don’t know what we’re talking about, and we never will know, unless the right man comes along. I don’t want him to come! I’d rather be as I am. If he ever comes, it will upset everything and spoil all my plans. But I’ve seen Jen and Joy, and I know this—if the right man ever comes, I shall be glad to have my plans upset! I’ll want to give up everything for him. If he doesn’t come, so much the better; I’ll go on as I am. I’ve never seen a man yet that I’d dream of giving up my job for. Apparently you haven’t either. Don’t dream of it, or think any more about him, unless you know for certain he’s worth everything you have to give. I tell you, girls nowadays have a lot to give to the man they choose. There’s no escape from a second-best sort of life on our part. We have our own lives, and we give them up only if we love the man enough. And he knows it. If you give up the gardening that you love for this man, you’ll be worth more to him than a Victorian schoolgirl who spent her time dusting the drawing-room and arranging the flowers.—There’s my kid yelling. See you later!” and she waved her hand and ran indoors, calling out the good news of Tony to Elspeth as she went.

Rena went slowly in to The Dragon, to consult Lisabel about plans for the day.

“I’m glad the kid’s better,” Lisabel said, sitting on her window-sill and looking down into the Squirrel front yard, where Elspeth was arranging Roderic’s carved cradle in a sunny corner. “What was Rosamund being so fierce about? I heard her voice.”

“Not fierce; only emphatic. About marriage.” Rena stood playing with the blind-cord.

“Oh? Does she say you’re to marry Rex?”

“She says I don’t love him.”

“Well, that’s true!” Lisabel exploded. “You couldn’t hesitate like this, if you loved him. You’ve no right to marry him.”

Rena looked at her curiously. “My dear Liza, I’ve no idea of marrying Rex. I’ve told him so a dozen times.”

“But he doesn’t believe it. You don’t convince him.” Lisabel stared down into the garden and did not look at her.

“I don’t see how I’m ever to convince him, except by marrying somebody else. He just laughs and says he’ll come back later, when I’ve changed my mind. He won’t take me seriously.”

“Better marry some one else, in that case. Then Rex might come to his senses.”

“I’m not going to marry anybody,” Rena retorted.

“If Rufus asked you, you’d have him.” Lisabel turned and shot the words at her.

A wave of colour swept into Rena’s face, for suddenly she knew that every word Rosamund had said was true. For the right man she would give up her career and her independence.

“We won’t discuss Rufe,” she said curtly, and turned to go to her own room. “He hasn’t time to think about that sort of thing. He’s wrapped up in patients and operations.”

“It sounds awful!” Lisabel called after her. “But he may wake up some day!”

Rena closed her door with emphasis, and presently Lisabel saw her go out, dressed in her working clothes, walking towards the woods.

Lisabel shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not wanted. I’ll go the other way. What a daft business it is! Rex is crazy for Rena and never looks at me. Rufus is buried in his work and never thinks of Drena. She’d have Rufe, and I’d have Rex, if they asked us. I wonder——! If only Rufe would come to earth and fix up with her! He’s always been keen; he admired her enormously when she first began working in the garden. If only he would, Rex might—well, he’d see it was hopeless, anyway. I wonder if he is in earnest about Drena? She sticks to it that he’s only fooling. I’d like to know what Rex really means!” And Lisabel climbed to the dewpond and sat there dreaming, while Rena walked feverishly through the woods and lanes for miles, till the thoughts kindled by Rosamund and Lisabel had settled down.

The news of Tony Marchwood continued to be good. Rena went with Rosamund to the village late in the evening, and once more Jen answered the call.

“How jolly of you to come, Ros! He’s all right now. He slept most of the day, and so, to tell the truth, did I. He woke about six and had some milk and spoke to us; he asked where Andy was—they’re great pals really, you know, although they fight at times. Ken says that’s all right, and that he used to fight with Uncle Andrew; I think Tony must be rather like what Ken was as a kid! Ken understands him so well. So we fetched Andy, and he kissed Tony and told him he was sorry he’d pushed him; Andy had a bad fright when Tony fell downstairs, you know. He’ll be more careful after this. Tony’s asleep again now, and both the nurse and the doctor are quite satisfied.”

“That’s splendid news! You won’t worry to-night!”

Then Rena took the receiver from her hand. “I say, Jenny-Wren!”

Rosamund laughed and stood aside, and nodded.

“Who is it? Who is there with you, Ros? Oh, is it the nice gardener girl? But why——?”

“Is a mere working woman allowed to call Lady Marchwood Jenny-Wren, for the sake of auld lang syne?”

“Who is it?” Jen called, her tone frantic. “I know the voice; who are you?”

“Guess! I’m the Garden Damosel; the garden-maid.”

“Not—not Tommy, from Rocklands?” Jen gave a shout. “Andrena Mackay, is it really you?”

A shadow had crossed Rena’s face at the greeting. But she said promptly, “I don’t mind being Tommy to you, Jenny-Wren. Yes, it’s Rena from Rocklands. The house here belongs now to Mrs Thorburn, and she’s sent me and Lisabel to do up the grounds before she offers it for sale. The place is in a ghastly state; we’re having the time of our lives putting it in order. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever tackled. I’m loving it.”

“You always did love a big job. I want to see you. When can you come over? I’ll send the car. It will be ripping to see you again, Drena! I never dreamt the gardener boarder could be you.”

“We rang you up to tell you last night, as soon as we discovered the connection. Rosamund spoke of Jen, and I yelled, ‘Not Jenny-Wren, from The Grange?’ We raced off to ’phone, but you told us about Tony, so we didn’t bother you just then. I’m so glad he’s all right, Jen.”

“I’ve had the fright of my life,” Jen informed her. “And the worst of it is, it will happen again. The boys aren’t angels, and we can’t watch them all the time.”

“Would you like them to be angels?” Rena mocked.

“My dear—no! But they’ll be drowned in the lake, and killed falling out of windows, a dozen times before they’re old enough for school. I know now what we’re in for. Won’t you come and see them?”

“I’m a working woman. I must stick to my job. But Rosamund says you’ll come here to see her baby.”

“The first day I possibly can. It will be Wednesday,” Jen said. “I shan’t leave Tony to-morrow. If he’s still all right I have to go to open a silly bazaar in Risborough on Tuesday. Tell Ros to expect me on Wednesday. I’m in a hurry to see young Roderic, and now I’m keen to meet you again too. What have you been doing all these years, while I’ve been marrying and opening bazaars and having babies?”

“Do you open bazaars all the time? I’ve been to college, you know.”

“It’s a figure of speech for all the messy public duties I’m expected to do. I can’t be a brute and refuse, but I do get fed up sometimes!”

“It’s decent of you to help people that way. Can’t you bring any children with you on Wednesday?”

“There are only three,” Jen protested. “I’ll see. Not Tony; we’ll try to keep him quiet for a few days.”

“Then you’d better bring Andy with you,” Rosamund suggested. “Good-night, Jen! Sleep well!”

“ ’Night, Ros! ’Night, Tommy!” and Jen rang off.

“Why ‘Tommy’?” Rosamund asked, as they walked home together.

“Would you marry a boy who called you ‘Tommy’?” Rena demanded stormily.

“I would not. Was it his name for you?”

“When I first helped Mrs Thorburn’s old gardener, long before college, when I was still a schoolgirl, Rex Courtney always called me Tommy. I don’t mind Jen keeping it up, but I’ve had enough of it from him. And then he asks me to marry him!”

“He’s all off the beat,” said Rosamund. “One doesn’t marry Tommy. Tommy’s a pal and a chum and a good sort, and all right to play with, but not a wife. You’ll have to be very firm with the boy, Rena. He is only a boy, if he still calls you Tommy. However much he thinks he’s in earnest, he isn’t. It isn’t the real thing.”

“I don’t marry a boy who calls me Tommy. Don’t you think it matters that he’s three years younger than I am?”

“Of course it matters—for you. It wouldn’t, for some girls. But you couldn’t marry a boy of twenty-two; you couldn’t, Drena.”

“Lisabel says it doesn’t matter. But she’s young for her age. She wasted four years, and she still seems young, to me. She’s as old as I am, you know. But she hasn’t really caught up.”

“I wouldn’t have believed it. She’s quite three years younger in her mind,” Rosamund said, with conviction. “It wouldn’t matter for her, if she’d like to marry your boy. But you mustn’t do it, Rena.”

“I’m not going to marry him. The trouble is to make him believe it.”

“Make him marry Lisabel instead.”

“Lisabel wouldn’t mind. In fact, she’d like it,” Rena said, as they reached the gate of The Dragon.

As Rena and Lisabel came down the lane from the woods next morning, hungry for lunch at The Squirrel House, they saw a big car standing at the gate.

“We’re open for visitors. The green and gold umbrellas are up!” Rena exclaimed. “It looks as though customers had arrived.”

“Bother! I’m hungry,” Lisabel growled.

“We’ll be all right. They’re expecting us.—Oh, look, Liza!”

Down the Squirrel path came dancing a green sprite, and a moment later another. They had bare tumbled heads of red curls, and big brown eyes; the little green frocks were embroidered with yellow flowers and leaves. They tugged at the door of the car, and some one inside opened it and lifted them in, and began to help them into green coats and hoods.

“It’s the twins Rosamund talks about,” Lisabel said.

“Green fairies, straight from the land of the little people,” Rena agreed. “I’m glad we’ve seen them. They’re just pictures. Now—oh, but——! But I’ve seen her before!” and she stood searching her memory.

Following the twins down the path came their mother. Joy wore a morning jumper-suit of brown, with touches of bronze and gold in its pattern, and her hair, under a little hat, was as vivid as her daughters’ curls. She felt the eyes of the strangers on her, and looked up. Then she smiled at sight of their costume.

“Rosamund’s gardener friends, I’m sure. We aren’t going to spoil your lunch; you must be ready for it. We stayed too long, talking to Baby Roderic.”

“Yodewic’s nice,” and the head of a twin appeared over the edge of the open car.

“We got a baby too,” the other twin proclaimed. “Aunty Biddy’s baby—a girl baby.”

“But don’t I know you?” Rena exclaimed, addressing Joy. “Didn’t you come to stay with Jen at The Grange, after her accident? Weren’t you there the day I first met her, when we had the gramophone and she criticized my morris jig?”

Joy looked puzzled, and then she laughed. “That would be my cousin Joan. She went home to Yorkshire with Jen. I haven’t met you before.”

“Joan! Yes, that was her name. But—you are very like her!” Rena remonstrated.

“I know; but I really am not Joan. We’re going to lunch with her now. I’ll tell her about meeting you. She’s joining her children at the sea to-morrow; they’re recruiting after mumps. She sent them off as soon as they were out of quarantine. She has two, a girl and a boy,”—as she saw Rena’s question coming. “She’s Mrs Raymond.”

“She was engaged, or nearly engaged, when she came to stay with Jen. I remember,” Rena agreed. “If she’d come with you I should really have thought——”

“That you were seeing double,” Joy said, laughing.

“That there was something the matter with me. I am so glad to have seen your twins. But doesn’t Joan feel they ought to be hers? They must be very like her.”

“Oh, but she has one too! Her Jansy—Janice—is as like Elizabeth and Margaret as she can be. We’re going to send them all to school together some day.”

“They’ll make a lovely trio,” Rena exclaimed.

Margaret’s head appeared, in a green hood, over the edge of the car. “Aunty Joan’s dinner’s waitin’!” she shouted.

“Margaret’s hungry in spite of Aunt Rosamund’s milk and biscuits,” Joy said. “I’m sure you’re hungry too, Miss Gardener. You must come to see us when you visit Jen.”

“Margaret’s a gweedy,” Elizabeth observed.

“I aren’t, Twin! I aren’t!” and Margaret flung herself on her sister.

“Children! I shall send you home for dinner, and you won’t see Aunty Joan—or Jansy’s kitten, which matters much more, I know!”

“Want to see Jansy’s kitty. Margaret, be good!” Elizabeth commanded.

“Kitty’s awful sweet,” and Margaret subsided, but eyed her mother impatiently. “Dinner’s waitin’,” she hinted again. “Twin an’ me’s vewy hungwy.”

“Andrew and Tony aren’t the only little people who fight. The twinnies are tomboys, as you see,” and Joy nodded to Rena and spoke to the chauffeur. “Rayleigh, Frost.”

“What a jolly little family!” Rena turned to Rosamund, who had come to the gate to wave farewell.

“Your lunch is waiting, garden-maids. Did you speak to Mary-Dorothy, Rena?”

“Who? You don’t mean——?”

“That was Mary Devine in the car, who wrote the school story you’re so keen on.”

“Oh, you might have told me!” Rena wailed. “I never looked at her. Oh, that was mean!”

“I don’t suppose anybody else ever is looked at when those twins are on the scene,” Lisabel remarked. “They fill the picture entirely. Do you know what I heard, while you were talking to their mother? One red head popped up, and a twin stared at me and announced, ‘Lady got on chowsies’; and the other said in an elderly way, ‘That’s yude, Twin.’ ‘Don’t care,’ said Number One. ‘Then you’se a yude girl,’ said Number Two.”

“Elizabeth tries to keep Margaret in order. She’s very conscious of being the elder,” Rosamund said.

Jen’s visit was paid, as she had promised, on Wednesday. She came to tea, and was still sitting in the paved court of The Squirrel House, under a golden umbrella, nursing Baby Roderic and talking to Audrey of her new plans, when the garden-maids came in, having knocked off work an hour earlier on her account.

“We’ll make it up on Saturday.” Rena was scrupulously exact about her working hours.

“Hello, Tommy! Jolly to see you again,” and Jen laid the baby in the cradle and sprang up. “The same old Tommy, and the same old boots! Glad to see you, Lisabel!”

“You’d be glad of the boots, if you had my job,” Rena retorted. “You should see the wilderness we’re trying to tame! Jen, it’s lovely to see you! I never dreamed of such luck when we came here.”

“Oh, my dear! Why does she ever wear a hat?” cried Jen, as Lisabel threw aside her hat and set her halo free. “Lisabel, how have you done it? I remember you with such a tidy plait!”

“It’s Rena’s doing, like everything else about me,” Lisabel answered. “She kept on at me till I said I’d be bobbed, and then that happened—it turned into a mop. And as I’m crawling under bushes all day long, I have to wear something. I didn’t know I’d look like a wild man of the woods, or I might have thought twice about having it done.”

“It’s most becoming,” Jen scolded. “You look nicer than I ever thought you could.”

Lisabel laughed. “Rena wants to talk to you, and you want her. I’ll get on with my tea, if you don’t mind; I have to write to Mrs Thorburn and report progress to-night.”

“Betty sent her love to you and hopes she’ll see you before you go North again.” Jen turned to Rena, who had sat down at her tea-table, bare-headed in the sunshine, and cross-legged in her boyish fashion.

“Betty?” Rena stared at her. “Not Betty McLean, who was at school with me? Betty, who was head girl at the time I met you, and who helped you and Rhoda to find the Basque pipe? But where is she now? I’ve not heard of her since she left school.”

“She lives in our village. She’s head of Joy’s Music School and captain of Joy’s Guides; Joy is Ranger Captain. Betty has her L.R.A.M., and takes care of the music students.”

“How very thrilling! I’d love to see Bets again. Tell me how it happened,” Rena begged.

They were still deep in talk of their schooldays when Lisabel finished her tea and went off to the inn to write her report. Rosamund came to tend young Roderic, but seeing him still sleeping, she sat with the others and listened to their stories.

Audrey came out from The Squirrel House, a letter in her hand. She had met the postman at the gate, and, seeing the writing on the envelope, had carried the letter indoors. Her face was troubled, as she came and stood by the yellow umbrella.

“What’s up, Audrey? Oh, it’s a letter from Eleanor!” Rosamund exclaimed. “What’s the matter now? Tell us the worst! It’s no secret from Rena, and Jen knows all about her.”

Elspeth had followed Audrey and stood leaning over her shoulder, as Audrey sat on the arm of Rosamund’s chair. “I think it’s jolly good news,” she said.

“That depends on Rosamund. Eleanor knows better than to ask me. In any case, I couldn’t do it now,” Audrey said. “Charles wouldn’t hear of it. Rosamund, Eleanor writes to say that the friends in Devonshire are returning to India almost at once, and they suggest she should go with them. They say she mustn’t lose touch with all her friends out there; she must go back sooner or later, and it would be much pleasanter for her to travel with them. They’d like to have her, and the climate suits her, and she hasn’t friends in this country now. She proposes coming here for a few days, and then going to town to do her shopping and joining them there.”

She looked at Rosamund expectantly. Jen and Rena and Elspeth looked at Rosamund too.

Rosamund, after a startled exclamation, had turned from them and was gazing down into Roderic’s cradle. It was nearly his bottle-time; he gave a whimper and stirred; she patted him and drew the blue quilt over his little shoulder.

As no one spoke, she looked up at Audrey. “And is she taking the boy with her?”

“She says, of course not. But she knows Rosamund will be willing to keep him for her till she comes back.”

“She won’t come back,” Elspeth remarked.

“Well, you can tell her—and I think you’d better wire,” Rosamund spoke with suppressed fury. “You can wire to Eleanor right away—‘Rosamund refuses.’ I’m not having any. See?”

“Rosie! You’d never let young Roderic down?” Jen cried in dismay.

“But I thought you wanted him?” Rena exclaimed.

“It’s quite unreasonable of Eleanor, and I’m ashamed of her,” Audrey said gravely. “But if she’s determined to go to India, how can we stop her? And it would be very bad for Roderic to be taken there.”

“Especially by Eleanor,” said Elspeth.

“You don’t want that, do you?” Rena looked anxiously at Rosamund, unwilling to admit she was disappointed in her, but sorely puzzled.

Jen laid a hand on Rosamund’s knee. “Ros, what is it? There’s something behind this. You aren’t going to let your brother down. You won’t let him be taken back to India. What do you mean? Have you some other plan?”

“Thank you, Jenny-Wren.” Rosamund’s face quivered, and she sat biting her lips and looking down at the cradle, in the grip of some strong feeling.

“Ros, if you’ll keep him, I’ll help,” Elspeth exclaimed. “When Audrey goes away, I’ll work double time and do everything you say, if you feel it’s too much for you to have him alone. I’d be a lot of use, really, Ros! But don’t let Eleanor have Roderic.” It was a long speech for her, and she reddened in shy confusion as Jen and Rena looked at one another and then at her.

“Elspeth, you’re a sport,” Rosamund cried.

She looked at the others. “I’m not going to let Roderic down. But Eleanor’s going to, if she can. I’m going to stand by him. I’ve felt sure I should have to fight for him sooner or later. It’s come sooner than I expected, that’s all. I’ve thought and thought for hours, since I’ve had him here.—Yes, my lamb, just a minute or two more, and you shall have your tea.—Eleanor’s playing with us. I’m going to bring her to the point, and have things settled, once and for all.”

She rose and stood looking down at the rest. “I don’t know what you’ll all feel about it. But my thinking comes to this—I’ll take Roderic off Eleanor’s hands altogether and do everything for him. I want to do it. But he’s to be mine, and he’s to be left to me to bring up. She isn’t going to come back in two years and take him away from me. If she’ll give him to me, legally and finally, I’ll take him and he’ll be no more bother to her. But it’s to be properly done. If I take him now, I don’t give him up again. Now do you understand that? Any objections?”

There was silence as the other four stared at her.

“I don’t understand,” Audrey said at last. “How could you refuse to give him up, if she wanted him?”

“She won’t want him,” said Elspeth.

“It would be rotten to have to give him up, when you’d grown fond of him, of course,” Rena conceded.

“I’m fond of him already. Too fond of him to risk having to give him up to—his mother.”

Rosamund’s face was set. She looked at Jen, as the one whose opinion mattered most.

Jen leaned forward. Her face had lit up with eager understanding and a great appreciation.

“Rosamunda, I begin to think you’re a heroine. Do you mean to adopt him legally and to force his mother to agree?”

“I mean to adopt him legally. She’ll have to sign papers giving him to me. We’ll do it properly, through father’s solicitors in town. If she won’t, she can make other plans for him.” Rosamund’s face was resolute.

“Oh, but she will,” Rena cried. “What other plan could she make that would be half as good? She’ll be only too glad! She’ll fling him into your arms!”

“She’s done that already,” Elspeth remarked.

“Ros, you are a brick!” Jen exclaimed. “But can you face anything so big and final? It means educating him and all. You know you have us behind you, but even so it’s a tremendous thing to take on!”

“I’m not sure that I could face it without you behind me,” Rosamund said, deep feeling in her voice. “But with a background of you and Joy and the Abbey I can do anything.”

“Rosamund Kane, that’s the most beautiful thing that has ever been said to me!” Jen cried. “I shall tell Joy the minute I see her. For you really mean Joy and the Abbey.”

“I mean you and Joy and the Abbey. Audrey, don’t you think I’m right?”

“I’m not sure. I feel it may be too much for you.” Audrey was five years older than Rosamund and three years older than Jen, and she spoke soberly.

They turned to her quickly. “But we’ll all help, Audrey,” Jen reminded her.

“I couldn’t do it alone,” Rosamund said at once.

Audrey looked thoughtful. “Why are you so keen to adopt him altogether? It isn’t usual, when he has a mother. Couldn’t you promise to take charge of him while she’s away, and be content with that? Probably she’ll be away a great deal; you’d have him most of the time. But she’d have the responsibility; that’s what I think is too much for you to shoulder. It’s her duty.”

“If I have the nice part of him—which is taking care of him and having him all to myself—I must take the worry of him too,” Rosamund said sturdily.

“All she wants is to make use of you, of course, and to dump him on you when it isn’t convenient for her to look after him herself. It’s not fair; I admit that,” Audrey agreed.

“I don’t mind that. Or rather I do mind a great deal,” Rosamund said. “But I’d put up with it, and allow her to make a convenience of me, for his sake, if I thought that was best for him. That’s all I’d thought of doing at first. But now that I’ve seen her with him and know just how she’d treat him, I can’t bear it. For Roderic’s sake, if he’s to grow up anything worth while, I must have him all the time.”

She looked at Jen. “I know that sounds conceited, but it isn’t really. She cares more for herself than for him. She’ll play with him and show him off and make a toy of him, and then when he cries she’ll turn him over to a nurse. She’ll slap him for howling and then give him what he’s crying for, to quiet him. I’ve seen her do it. The poor child will never know where he is; and in two days he’ll learn that he can have anything he wants by yelling for it, and that if he teases long enough he’ll get his own way. Is that the right way to bring up a child? Jen, you have three; what do you say?”

Jen’s face had grown grim. But instead of answering she turned to Audrey. “Is it as bad as that? I don’t mean to doubt you, Rosie! But you might be prejudiced. Audrey, his mother is your sister. Is she as foolish as Rosamund thinks?”

Audrey gazed down at Roderic for a long moment, and then looked straight at Jen. “I’m afraid she is. I haven’t another word to say.”

“Rosie, I’ll stand by you through thick and thin!” Jen exclaimed.

“It would be awfully bad for any kid to be brought up by Eleanor,” Elspeth urged. “Do help Ros to get hold of him, Lady Marchwood!”

“I’m going to fight for him.” Rosamund squared her shoulders. “If necessary I’ll give up any claim on father’s money for him. Eleanor can have it all, and I’ll provide for Roderic. I’d really rather she didn’t pay anything towards his keep and education, for if she makes an allowance for him she’ll feel she has a claim to him. I’ll do it all, and she can have the money.”

“Oh, you mustn’t do that!” Audrey and Rena spoke together.

Jen said only, “Can you, Rosie? How will you manage?”

Rosamund turned to her. “For Roderic’s sake, and so that Eleanor can’t feel she has any rights in him, I’ll even give up my pride and borrow from you or Joy. I know you’ll want to help me.”

Jen’s face lit up. “It’s the biggest compliment and the greatest kindness you could do to us—to let us share instead of his silly mother! And I know it’s the biggest sacrifice you could make for his sake. Ros, I think more of you to-day than I’ve ever done before, and that’s saying a good deal.”

“I know I’m taking on a big thing. I can only do it because I know I have you and Joy behind me,” Rosamund said again. “Jen, I must put him to bed,” as the subject of the conference gave a hungry wail that would not be denied. “He’s not being naughty. It’s past his time, and he’s right to protest. He’s been very good. Elspeth will carry up the cradle, and I’ll tub him quickly and then he can have his supper and settle down. You’ll wait half an hour for me, won’t you?”

Jen sprang up. “Oh, Ros, let me tub him! Just for once! I love wee little babies. Rosemary is nine months old; quite a big girl! Let me give young Roderic his bath; Biddy and Maid let me wash Madelon Marie now and then, just to keep my hand in! I might have another; you never know your luck!”

“My dear, you’ll have plenty more,” Rosamund retorted, lifting Roderic and leaving the cradle for Elspeth. “Aren’t you going to have six boys—a morris side? I thought that was understood. Rosemary Jane was an accident.”

Jen laughed; she was all eagerness to handle the baby. “A very nice little accident she is. But I love them while they’re about a foot long. Give him to me, Ros!”

“Oh, here you are, then!” and Rosamund thrust her brother into Jen’s eager arms. “I’ll fetch the bath water!”

“Is his mother really as bad as you say, Ros?” Jen asked as she bathed young Roderic, who gurgled with delight.

Rosamund sat on the bed, holding the bottle wrapped in flannel, and watched her. “You do it better than I do. But I’m better than Audrey.”

“And Elspeth daren’t touch him, of course. You’ve had practice at home. Is she as bad as all that, Rosie?”

“Worse. She bought him a rubber comforter from Woolworth’s.”

Jen shouted. “And you threw it out of the window.”

“If she brings one here, it will go into the black-currant bushes. I can’t say much before Audrey and Elspeth, but she’s just plain selfish, and she hasn’t the first idea of putting Roderic’s good before her own comfort.”

“I think Audrey knows, though she’s grateful to you for not saying it.”

“That’s about the state of affairs. We don’t discuss Eleanor too much.”

“As for your Aunt Elspeth, she’s never made any secret of her feelings.”

“She turned Eleanor down once and for all when she heard of her marriage. Elspeth says Eleanor married an old man to have a good time and to get hold of his money. Sixty is ‘an old man’ to Elspeth.”

“It sounds awful, put bluntly like that, but it’s the truth, Ros.”

“We all know it’s the truth. Elspeth’s a final sort of person. Once you go down in her opinion you don’t come up again. She’ll never forgive Eleanor.”

“Eleanor evidently isn’t a proper sort of mother.”

“If she had been, she might perhaps have earned some respect from Elspeth, and Audrey would have forgiven her everything. As it is, she didn’t want Roderic, and she’s tired of him already.”

Jen cuddled the unwanted one in the big towel.

“Poor mannie! He’s fortunate to have a sister who does want him. About this adoption business, Ros. I feel you’re right, but what will the lawyers say? You’re rather young, you know.”

“I’m as old as she is. I’m one month older than my stepmother.”

Jen looked at her over the damp baby. “But she’s his mother. It will make a difference.”

“They don’t like her,” Rosamund observed. “We went to see father’s solicitors, to introduce her while we were in town. I know quite well they thought she was a silly little thing. I believe they’d rather I brought up young Roderic.”

“If they’ve any sense, they’ll certainly prefer you to have him. But they’ll wish you were older. If Audrey were willing to adopt him, now, it would be different. She’s a responsible age.”

“Nearly twenty-nine. But her engagement knocks that idea on the head. Audrey’s marriage is unfortunate from Eleanor’s point of view, but excellent from mine,” Rosamund explained, with the air of one who had thought over the matter carefully. “It would have been quite natural for Eleanor to leave her child with her sisters, if she wanted to return to India. She could even take it for granted that they’d be willing to have him, and they’d have hated to refuse. But Audrey’s plans make it out of the question. Eleanor’s left in an awkward hole. She hasn’t a scrap of claim on me. I might refuse to have anything to do with her. No one could demand that a stepdaughter should take her child off her hands!”

Jen looked thoughtful. “That’s true. She has no possible claim on you. If you take him it’s out of sheer good will.”

“Yes, and so I can insist on adopting him. Or else I’ll refuse to have him.”

“You wouldn’t refuse, Ros.”

“I shall refuse so definitely that Eleanor will have to believe it. She’ll give in then; she won’t give up her plans. Once she sees I’m in earnest she’ll climb down and sign anything I want. She’ll marry again, you know.”

“I think it’s very probable.”

“Oh, she’s sure to. She’s got hold of father’s money; she’ll find a husband of her own age this time. Roderic isn’t going to be a ‘step’ to any one but me.”

Jen laughed. “You’ll overlook the ‘step.’ Didn’t he leave you anything, Ros? That’s terribly unfair.”

“Eleanor gets it all; but half’s in trust for Roderic till he’s of age. There isn’t so very much, but she’ll have enough to live on. If she hasn’t to educate Roderic she’ll be quite comfortable.”

“I don’t like that part of it. She ought to pay for him, if you do the work.”

“If she pays, she’ll say she still has rights in him and she’ll interfere and undo all I’m trying to do,” and Rosamund’s face set sternly. “Jen, he must be well brought up! Think of his mother! I won’t say anything against father, but if Roderic should turn out to be like his mother I’d be sorry. I’ve had certain things put into me during those years I lived at the Abbey, and I want to put them into Roderic. I want him to be like your boys and the twins will be. I believe I can do it, if he’s left to me. But I can’t if Eleanor has the power to work against me.”

Jen had been dressing Roderic while she talked. Now she cuddled him in a shawl in her left arm and held out her hand for the bottle. “He’s an imp; he’s in a hurry for it. But he’s a darling; I don’t wonder you want him. Ros, I’ll stand by you and help you all I can.”

“I know. I’m depending on you, Brownie.”

Rosamund tidied up the room, emptied the bath water, and prepared the cradle. Then she stood by Jen, looking down at the baby, who was falling asleep.

“He’s easy just now. The trouble will be later on, when he’s running about.” Jen looked up at her.

“Yes. I’ve seen Andy and Tony and the twins. I know what I’m in for.”

“And you aren’t daunted by anything!” Jen exclaimed admiringly.

“I’m sure we’ll pull through. I can always ask your advice.”

“It’s yours, at any moment, my dear. Your boy—if you get him—and Biddy’s Madelon Marie will be an interesting pair to watch.”

“Has Maid given way about her godchild’s name? She was calling her Marie Madelon, when I saw her.”

“That’s habit; Biddy called her that at first. Maid will soon be used to Madelon Marie; it’s much prettier that way. She and Mary are so proud of the godchild!”

“It hasn’t occurred to you to ask why I’m so determined to take Roderic out of Eleanor’s hands.” Rosamund spoke with pent-up energy.

Jen gazed at her in astonishment. “I didn’t know there was any reason, except that you think she’ll spoil him. And that you’re fond of him, of course!”

Rosamund looked back at her, and slowly grew red, till her face was all flushed. “You’ve forgotten. Audrey and Elspeth don’t know; I can’t say anything before them. But I’d like to know what you think about it. It never mattered before; I was only a girl, and there were too many between. But it’s different with a boy. Roderic might—matter—some day. He’s going to have a good start, if I can manage it.”

Jen was staring at her, wide-eyed.

“Let’s put the kid down. He’s asleep. I shall drop him in a moment!” she said breathlessly.

“You couldn’t drop a baby, and you couldn’t let him down.” But Rosamund rescued her brother and laid him safely in the cradle. “Now, Jen, do you know what I mean?”

“Your posh relations in the background. I’d forgotten all about them. Tell me, Ros!” Jen commanded.

“It didn’t matter, just for me,” Rosamund said again. “Girls don’t count. But Roderic’s great-uncle is the Earl of Kentisbury, and he’s eighty-six.”

“Yes?” Jen cried.

“My father’s uncle,” Rosamund explained. “He had three sons, and as father was only a nephew, there was no need to talk about it. But father was the only nephew. The second son died a year ago, unmarried; the youngest has always been an invalid. The eldest was killed in a flying accident last year; I saw it in the papers. It didn’t concern me then, but I knew what it would mean if father had a boy. The eldest left one son, a schoolboy, who’s now at Eton. He’s the heir, Lord Verriton,” Rosamund paused.

“And after him—the invalid one, who isn’t married, I suppose?” Jen said soberly. “After him? Rosamund Kane, are you bringing up a little earl?”

“It’s just possible that I may be. It isn’t likely, of course. The schoolboy may grow up and have a large family. But if anything should happen to him, Roderic will be all-important to the family, and they’ll begin to ask questions about him. The delicate one won’t marry; if he lives he’ll perhaps become the earl, but he won’t have an heir. Roderic’s the direct heir at present.”

“And Eleanor knows, of course? She won’t give him up to you, Rosamund.”

“It’s only a chance that he’ll come into it all,” Rosamund urged. “He may never be any nearer it than he is now. I’m willing to take the chance, but I’m hoping Eleanor won’t be. I hope she’ll be so keen to get him off her hands that she’ll risk it. If he does in time come into the title, she’ll want to claim him; she’d fancy herself enormously as ‘the mother of the young earl.’ That’s why I’m determined to have him legally mine, and to have it recognised by the lawyers.”

Jen nodded. “She’ll want to agree now, for the sake of her own convenience, but to go back on it later on. You’ll have to be careful, Ros.”

“I’m going to fight for Roderic now. If she makes trouble later on I’ll fight for him again. Jen, you do understand, don’t you?” Rosamund cried wistfully. “I’ve had to think it out all alone. Somehow I couldn’t talk it over with Audrey; it means being too frank about Eleanor. And I just couldn’t bring myself to tell Rena. I’ve been waiting for you to come.”

“My dear, it’s been very hard for you,” Jen exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell Joy and me when you came to see Biddy last Wednesday? We could have gone into the Abbey and threshed it out.”

“I was waiting till I knew what attitude Eleanor would take when she came here. I felt I must see if she seemed likely to settle down. I had no right to talk about adopting Roderic then, Jen. But when she sent him home to me and didn’t come at all—even Audrey, when she brought him, said, ‘Take him! He’s yours’—and when she coolly writes proposing to leave him on my hands, I feel I’ve a right to suggest he should be really mine.”

“She’s practically deserting him; that’s how you feel,” Jen agreed. “I see that you couldn’t discuss it before; or with anybody but one of us. Of course I understand, Ros.”

“Do you think I’m too awful?” Rosamund cried. “It sounds dreadful to talk of fighting for him and keeping him from his mother. What right have I to be so sure I can do better for him than she would? Am I self-satisfied and cocksure, and everything that’s horrid? I do feel he would be better in my hands.”

Jen laid a hand on her shoulder. “Rosie, none of those ugly things is true. You’ve a standard of what is necessary for your baby, and you know Eleanor hasn’t one. She’s thinking of her own comfort, and perhaps later on of her own position, if he becomes a great little boy. You’re thinking that he must be prepared for what may come to him, and that in any case he must have high ideals put into him. I don’t think you’re awful. I take off my hat to you, Ros, and I’ll help you in every way I can.”

“You are comforting,” Rosamund said unsteadily. “As for standards and ideals, where did mine come from? Didn’t I have you and Joy before me, just a few years older than I was, during all those years from fifteen to twenty-one? They’re important years. I learned things from you two, when you weren’t trying to teach me anything, that will last me all my life. So did Maid. How did she do all that stunt for Biddy, all alone in France? Standing by Bridget and the babe, with nobody to help or advise her, and bringing them home in triumph! We’d all have said Maid would go to pieces if she had to tackle such a problem. But she came through, and she’s different; she isn’t a kid any more. Somehow it wouldn’t occur to me to call her ‘Dear Infant,’ as I used to do.”

“Ruth wrote to me from Paris, privately and earnestly, that I was to see Joy didn’t call Maid ‘Dear Babe’ any more,” Jen agreed.

“You and Joy have put something into both Maid and me. I never had very much of my mother, as she was in India for so long; and Maid never knew her mother. We both had aunts, and we both had school. But you and Joy gave us something we’d have had from nowhere else. I’ll never know how much I owe to you Abbey folk.”

“You’ll let me tell this to Joy, Rosie? Or you’ll say it to her yourself? It’s only fair.”

“Tell Joy anything you like,” Rosamund said. “I don’t want other people to know about——”

“That young Roderic may be a little earl,” Jen agreed. “No, there’s no need to gossip. But I shall tell Joy, because of these beautiful things you’ve said about her. She’s charmed with Roderic, and the twins are in love with him. One thing occurs to me, Rosamunda. If you persuade Eleanor into the adoption idea, use my name and Joy’s to the lawyers; say we’re backing you. It will give them confidence in you.”

Rosamund’s face lit up. “It will really help. Thanks so much, Jenny-Wren!”

“I shall write a letter that you can show to the solicitors,” Jen said thoughtfully. “I’ll make it quite clear that Kenneth and I, and Joy, are behind you, and that Roderic will be perfectly well provided for, whatever happens. Our name should be quite a good reference, Rosie!”

“I believe it may make all the difference,” Rosamund said gratefully. “Some day I’ll see that Roderic thanks you himself.”

“When he’s the Earl of Kentisbury? Poor little scrap, it does seem a shame!” and Jen bent over the cradle.

“I hope it won’t happen for years. I really hope it won’t happen at all.” Rosamund’s tone was wistful. “Perhaps the Eton boy will marry young and have streams of boys of his own. It would be an awful bore, you know.”

“Poor Rosamunda! I’ve a vision!” Jen began dramatically. “A historic family castle—lofty halls, a huge doorway—rows of retainers in uniform, a terrifying housekeeper in black silk—Rosamund, dignified but very pink, marching up the steps with the infant earl in her arms, to introduce him to his household—then turning to present him to the assembled tenants, ‘My good people, your new lord and master’! And all the time longing for her own Rose and Squirrel, and her blue room, and her country smock, and her shop!”

“That bit of the vision is true, anyway,” Rosamund retorted. “It would mean an end to all this. All my own plans, all my life, would go to pieces. Oh, Jen, I hope it won’t ever happen!”

“Oh, you wouldn’t give this up! You’d finance it and keep it as a country cottage. You’d be ‘the eccentric Miss Kane who runs a craft-shop in Sussex’; society people all do it nowadays.”

Rosamund sighed. “I’ll never be a society person. You and Joy didn’t put that into me. I’ll face up to this thing if I have to, for Roderic’s sake; but I’m hoping desperately I’ll never need to do it.”

“Eleanor might do that bit of it better than you. At least she’d enjoy it,” Jen suggested. “Don’t worry, Rosie! You have it in you, if you need it. You could be dignified; you could learn to be Miss Kane of the Castle in half an hour. And you’d look the part, my dear. You’re tall and handsome enough!”

“You’d better go home to Ken, Jenny-Wren.”

Jen laughed. “Don’t worry too much about Eleanor, Ros. Even if your old Earl dies, there are two people between Roderic and grandeur. His mother will marry again in a year or two, and she’ll have a husband to reckon with. She’ll settle in India, and even if her eldest son has become heir to a title, she’ll think twice before she comes home to claim him, if she knows you’re prepared to show fight. Adopt him legally, and she won’t be able to take him back. And remember we’re behind you.”

“As if I should forget it! I’d like to have that letter, Jen.”

“You shall have it, my dear. I’m proud of you, Rosie,” and Jen kissed her. “I’m awfully bucked to think I may have tubbed an earl!” she said, turning in the doorway.

“Go home and tub your own, and don’t rag me,” Rosamund retorted.

“I hope my own are in bed and asleep by now. Good-night, Rosamunda. Send for me if you need me. I shall tell Joy the story to-morrow,” and Jen ran downstairs to say good-bye to Rena and to urge on her an invitation for some future week-end.

Joy, sitting in the Abbey, raised her eyebrows as she heard Jen’s story. “Earl of Kentisbury? And our Rosamund’s brother! How very odd! The mother will never give him up. She’ll leave him with a good nurse, or put him in a home for children whose parents are abroad. If Ros wants to keep him she’ll have to give in. I’d forgotten all about those relations of hers!”

“Ros says she’ll appeal to the lawyers. They’d be very firm with Mrs Kane if she tried to do anything of that sort. Knowing what the boy may be some day, I’m sure they won’t consent to his being brought up by paid help. They’ll frighten her into giving him to Ros, if she won’t stay and look after him,” Jen prophesied.

The next day Rosamund rang up the Manor.

“I want Lady Marchwood herself, please.—Oh, Jenny-Wren! Ros speaking, from the village. Eleanor’s coming here to-morrow. She wants to know what I mean.”

“What message did you send her?”

“Audrey wired—‘Rosamund refuses. Please come home.’ She’s wild, and awfully upset; keen to go with her friends to India, and can’t dream of taking Roderic; thought I’d be so pleased to have him for a while, and whatever do I mean? And so on; we’ve had a hectic letter. She’s coming to talk me round.”

“Sorry for her,” said Jen. “She’ll have a hard job.”

“Wouldn’t you like to see her, Jen? If you and Joy drove over to-morrow, you could have tea and be here when she arrives. She says she’ll come about four; she’s spending to-night in town. We’re open for customers. Come and have a Squirrel tea, and see what you think of her!”

“I’ll be there!” Jen cried joyfully. “And I’ll tell Joy. We’re panting to see the lady. We’ll bring the children and give them a Squirrel party. Do you mind? They love your teas.”

“Delighted! We’ll give them a table to themselves, and the twinnies shall mind your boys.”

“With your Aunt Elspeth in charge,” Jen amended. “There may be a free fight, if Elizabeth and Margaret are left to boss. Yes, Tony’s all right again, thanks, so he shall come too. All right! We’ll be Squirrel customers and keep very quiet in a corner, but we’ll see and hear all that goes on. At least we shall see your stepmother!”

“Hope you’ll like her,” Rosamund said grimly.

Rena and Lisabel, taking all their meals at The Squirrel House except breakfast, watched the preparations for the tea-party with amusement on Saturday afternoon. They had pleaded to be allowed to be customers too, and to have a table in another corner, but Rosamund had begged them to give up the idea.

“We shall be crowded out, and too busy for words,” she urged. “Strangers may come, as it’s Saturday, though there aren’t many people about yet. We really begin to be busy at Easter, and that’s not for a fortnight. But, as you’ve seen these last few days, casual people turn up, and we must have a table or so for them!”

Reluctantly Rena agreed to keep to her first plan for the afternoon and go up on the hills again.

“But we shall come back early. I want to see Jen’s boys,” she said.

“Give us time to get through tea comfortably. I’ll try to keep the boys till you come in,” Rosamund promised.

She waved good-bye as they set out for their tramp, and went on with her work, setting a big low table under a golden umbrella in a corner far from the gate, and arranging four little chairs round it.

She was putting down green plates and saucers when the latch of the gate clicked, and she looked up in surprise. Not customers so early, surely? There was no car; not Eleanor, then, nor the Abbey friends.

A man had entered the Squirrel forecourt and was looking about him doubtfully.

Rosamund laid down her tray and came to wait on him. A tramper, perhaps, who wanted coffee after a picnic lunch?

“No, he’s too tidy. He hasn’t been on the hills. He’s just come off that bus,” she said to herself, as the green bus rattled away along the London road.

The stranger, raising his cap, showed a head as red as Lisabel’s. “Is Miss Mackay here? And Miss Durrant? I had The Dragon given me as their address, but at the inn they referred me to The Squirrel Tea-House.”

“That’s right.” Rosamund’s eyes swept over him, with Rena’s questions and complaints in her mind. Was this the boy who called her Tommy?—who wanted to marry her, and who was three years younger than she?

Rosamund was puzzled. He looked as old as Rena, and he did not strike her as a boy. There was something in his thoughtful eyes and earnest manner which was attractive. Perhaps this was some other friend?

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but Rena and Lisabel have just gone out. It’s their afternoon off, and they’ve gone for a tramp on the hills. I expect them back about six, for tea. They’ve only been gone half an hour; I’m sorry you’ve missed them.”

“That’s bad luck. Do you know which way they’ve gone?”

“They went up the lane here; it leads to the hills. But you might search for them all the afternoon. It’s open downs at the top, and they’re good walkers.”

He smiled. “I know Liza’s walking powers, and Rena is quite as good. Still, I might come across them. If I have to wait till six, I may as well have a shot at finding them.”

“Are you by any chance Lisabel’s brother?” Rosamund’s eyes went to his hair.

He smiled again. “I can’t claim the honour. She hasn’t any brother. I’m merely a friend. My name is Courtney.”

Rosamund gave him such a quick glance that he knew the name was familiar to her. But he saw, too, that she was puzzled, and he wondered much what had been said about him to bring that look into her eyes.

She was puzzled, indeed, for she liked his face and he did not seem to fit what she had heard. But Courtney was the name Rena had said.

“Is it rude to ask whether it’s Rena or Lisabel you’ve come to see?” she asked. “I’m very keen on them both.”

“So am I,” her guest said promptly. “Which of them would you go to see?”

“I should go to see Rena.”

“Same here,” he smiled. “Only more so. You haven’t known her for more than a week; you can’t have any real idea of her. The pluck with which Drena faced up to the loss of her father when she was only sixteen, and set out to make her own way in the world, knowing she was practically alone and must do it all for herself, yet never once grousing or admitting it was hard lines, was a thing that bowled me over, once and for all, Miss Squirrel. She’s the best chum a man could have, if he could only have her. I was sixteen too, and that’s early to make up one’s mind for life. But I made up mine then, and I’ve never altered. I’ve never looked at any one else and I never shall. I don’t know whether she knows or not. What do you think? I can see she’s spoken of me.”

“Why do you call her Tommy?” Rosamund burst out indignantly. “I like the way you speak about her, but how could any girl like a man who called her—what’s the matter?”

Her guest was looking at her with a slow twinkle in his eyes. He broke into a laugh.

“But I don’t call her Tommy. I call her Andrew.”

“Oh! But she said——”

“It’s my rotten young brother who calls her Tommy.”

Rosamund’s face blazed in delight. “I thought you were the rotten young brother! I didn’t know there were two of you. The girls never spoke of another brother to me.”

“I’m Rufus. Strange, unaccountable nickname, isn’t it? Rupert Courtney, Miss Squirrel. So they never mentioned me. Now is that a good sign or a bad?”

“Good,” Rosamund said promptly. “Do go after them! I believe you’ll catch them. They were going along the edge of the hills, looking out over the Weald all the way. If you keep on that path you’ll come up with them in time.”

Rupert laughed. “You wouldn’t tell me all that while you thought I was Rex!”

“I didn’t see why you should spoil Rena’s half-holiday. Why have you let your brother plague her so badly?”

A memory made Rupert’s lips twitch. “He always did plague her. But, good heavens! nobody takes Rex seriously. Rena surely wasn’t really worried by the boy?”

“I don’t know that she did take him seriously.” Rosamund was thinking quickly. “But his teasing has made her think seriously about—well, about marriage. Why should she marry, as she says? She’s doing well and she’s very happy in her work.”

“I know,” Rufus said grimly. “It’s a big thing to ask of any girl who loves her job as Drena loves hers. But I’m going to ask her, all the same.”

“Why haven’t you asked her before?” Rosamund demanded. “Why did you leave it to Rex?”

“Because I honestly hadn’t anything good enough to ask her to share. I’ve been studying for years; I felt I must wait till I was through my Finals.”

Rosamund agreed. “I’d have felt like that myself. And now?”

“I’m through—medicine. I’m setting up in practice. I want Drena to share it with me.”

Rosamund looked thoughtful. “It depends on whether she cares for you. I can’t help you there.”

“I have something to offer her now; something rather big,” Rufus said, a gleam in his blue eyes. “But I shan’t tell her till I’ve asked her the other thing. Rena isn’t a girl to be bribed into marriage. If she doesn’t care enough to give up her job, I’ll have to turn to and make her.”

“Oh! I thought you were going to say, ‘If she won’t give up her job there’s nothing doing.’ Do you really think you can make Rena do something she doesn’t want to do?”

“I’m hoping she does want to do it, though she may not admit it at first. I shall have a jolly good try. Life will go to pieces for me if Rena—but I won’t believe that could happen. I believe she knows how I feel.”

“I don’t think she does. Why should she?”

“We were always pals,” Rufus urged. “I’m sure she knew I thought there was nobody like her.”

“She may have known once. But if you’ve been studying, away at college and in London, for years, without saying a word, she’ll think you’ve forgotten.”

“I’ll put her wise about that.” Rufus turned to the gate. “Up this lane, did you say?”

Rosamund nodded, her eyes sparkling. “Good wishes! She’s one of the best. I hope all will go well.—But you’ll have to get rid of Lisabel somehow.”

“Liza can go and pick blackberries,” Rupert said curtly.

“Oh, not in April!” Rosamund mocked.

He laughed, and paused by the gate. “I say, Miss Squirrel—oh, I beg your pardon!” for Rosamund had lifted Roderic out of his cradle and was turning toward the cottage. “Mrs—Mrs Squirrel, must I say? I’d like to thank you for being so jolly decent and encouraging.”

Rosamund looked at him over the squirming bundle. “This is my brother,” she said, with dignity. “I am Miss Kane.—Run along and find Rena, Dr Courtney. Bring her back here to supper, to tell me all about it. I hope you’ll have good news for me. Now I must attend to my baby. He really is my brother—‘step,’ you know,” and she disappeared into The Squirrel House.

“Who was it, Rosamund?” Audrey asked.

“A nice young man, come to propose to Rena.”

“Really, Ros?” Elspeth cried. “Oh, I hope she’ll say yes! Do you think she will?”

“Shouldn’t wonder. He called me ‘Mrs Squirrel,’ when he saw young Roderic,” Rosamund chuckled.

Audrey laughed. “Well, you can’t blame him for that! I hope Rena’s romance will end happily.”

“Your people are about due, Rosamund.” Audrey glanced from the window out into the empty forecourt of The Squirrel House.

“The car’s coming round the corner now,” Elspeth called from upstairs. “Two cars, Ros. I should have thought they could put all the babies into one?”

The twins, in golden-brown frocks and hatless, came racing up the path to see ‘Yodewick.’ They stood by the cradle on tiptoe and gazed at him, then rushed back to their mother at the gate.

“Muvver, he’s asleep! He’s sweet, Muvver!”

“Bigger’n he was on Monday, Muvver!”

“Isn’t bigger,” cried Margaret. “Couldn’t be!”

“Is much bigger,” Elizabeth said firmly.

“Come an’ see Baby Yoddy, Andy,” and Margaret took the elder boy by the hand. “Isn’t any bigger van he was, he isn’t.”

“Tony finks he’s g’own a lot,” Elizabeth said. “Come an’ look, Tony.”

“Hasn’t seen him yet,” Margaret cried shrilly.

“And anyway, Tony didn’t see him on Monday,” Joy said, laughing. “Don’t be absurd, Elizabeth. But I think he has grown; I believe you’re right about that, though it isn’t Tony’s opinion. He’s getting on splendidly, Ros. Your treatment seems to suit him.”

“He likes our Sussex milk. He’s really very little trouble so far. Why the uniform, Joy? Is it just to be impressive?”

Joy laughed. “There’s a Guiders’ Conference in town, and I’m going straight on. Betty goes, as a rule; but this time it’s particularly on Ranger work, so I thought I ought to go. I shall go on in the little car, and Jen will take the family home in hers.”

She wore the uniform of a Ranger Captain, and Rosamund nodded in approval. “I shall really have to introduce my stepmother to Captain the Lady Marchwood. She’ll wilt in your presence; anybody would. I feel I ought to stand and salute.”

“Don’t be an idiot! She hasn’t come yet, then?”

The small boys, Andrew and Tony, wore white smocks over tiny blue knickers, and had yellow curly heads like Jen’s. They looked at the baby, each guarded by a twin; then Andy tore his hand from Margaret’s grasp and ran to whisper to his mother, and Tony drew back from the cradle.

“Jus’ a baby,” he said disdainfully. “We got one at home.”

“So’ve we; Aunty Biddy’s baby,” Margaret cried instantly, not to be outdone in anything.

“Want to see ve pussies,” said Tony.

Jen laughed. “Can Aunt Elspeth spare time for pussies? We can’t say squirrels yet; they’re pussies with big tails. Can you produce squirrels, Elspeth?”

“We’ll have to go into the woods, and crouch down and be very quiet for a long, long time.” Elspeth came out from the cottage, wearing a big lilac overall. “If Audrey will finish the bread and butter, we’ll go and look for pussies with big tails. They’re much more fun than babies, aren’t they, Tony?”

“Want to see ve pussies wiv big tails,” cried Margaret. “Twin an’ me will come too, please.”

“The pussies will all run away, if you go, Margaret,” Joy remarked. “You’ll have to be very quiet, like a mouse, you know.”

“Twin be a little mouse,” said Elizabeth, and the four children trotted off with Elspeth.

“I thought you drew the line at Conferences and Rallies, and only wore uniform at home?” Rosamund asked, as she led her guests to the shady seats ready for them.

“That was at first. I don’t mind now,” Joy said. “The work seems more important than my feelings, I want to learn all I can.”

Rosamund agreed. “And when are you going to be a Commissioner and wear all sorts of extra tabs and things?”

“I’ve been asked already,” Joy admitted. “But I begged for more experience of Guiding before I took that on. Where are your pretty gardeners to-day?”

Rosamund’s eyes sparkled. “Out on the hills, being proposed to by such a nice young doctor.”

“Ros! Not both of them?”

“Where did you find him?” Jen asked, laughing. “Why didn’t you keep him yourself?”

“I? I didn’t want him. I’ve one man to look after, and that’s enough.”

“If the man is an earl, perhaps it is,” Jen agreed. “Some day you’ll marry somebody because you’ll think he would make a good stepbrother for Roderic. A boy needs a man to bring him up.”

“Not a bad idea,” Rosamund retorted. “Oh, not both of them, Joy. I’m hoping Lisabel will have the tact to come home early.”

“Then Rena’s the heroine?”

“Or the victim. I hope—here’s Eleanor. Sit down and be customers, you two!”

Joy and Jen retired into their corner and studied the bill of fare on the table. Audrey came running out to join Rosamund at the gate.

A taxi had drawn up, and the driver was handing out suitcases and rugs. Eleanor, a slim little figure in deep mourning, turned on her sister and stepdaughter as soon as the car had driven away, with no care at all for the strangers in the corner.

“Audrey, what did your wire mean? Rosamund, what’s the matter with you? I thought you were so desperately keen on baby? You know I can’t take him back to India with me. This is the very place for him, out here in the country. Why did you send that message? It upset me awfully. As if I hadn’t had enough worry! Every one says it’s positively brutal of you to bother me just now.”

She was a head shorter than Rosamund, with big childish blue eyes and bobbed flaxen curls. She had pulled off her black hat and stood swinging it in her hand and looking up at the taller girls, with an injured air which could have been very appealing.

“My goodness! She’ll have another husband in three months,” Jen murmured into the sugar basin.

“And dozens of men at her feet,” Joy agreed, behind the tariff bill. “No man could resist those pathetic eyes. She’s dangerous! But Rosamund will get the baby. That girl’s going to India, whatever happens.”

“She isn’t going to be hampered by an infant, either. Ros will win; but she’ll have to pay the bills. That girl will stick to the money.”

“You don’t want to discuss it on the spot, do you?” Audrey was asking. “Come indoors, Eleanor; we may have people here at any moment.”

“We have people, as a matter of fact,” Rosamund observed. “I’m just going to fetch their tea. Yours is ready in the house, Eleanor.”

Eleanor’s eyes swept over the table in the corner, and widened at sight of the Guide uniform. She turned to Rosamund.

“Can’t they wait? Why did you let people come in, when you knew I was coming? You might have guessed they’d be in the way. I want to talk about this mess at once.”

“It’s Saturday afternoon, and The Squirrel House is open,” Rosamund said mildly. “Why did you come on Saturday afternoon? We never have people in the morning.”

“I was shopping. There’s a sale on in Kensington. I’ve snapped up some of the loveliest frocks, absolute bargains. I’ll show you; the kind of thing you’d never need here, of course.”

“For the voyage, I suppose?” There was a hopeful note in Rosamund’s voice.

“Well, I must look decent! How is baby? Oh, he oughtn’t to be out here! He’ll catch cold,” Eleanor remonstrated, going to the cradle and looking down at her son.

“He’s lived out of doors since he came, and it seems to be suiting him,” Audrey remarked, carrying a suitcase indoors.

“I won’t pick him up just now. It would be a pity to disturb him. Rosamund, you must see that I couldn’t possibly take him with me?”

“Oh, quite!” said Rosamund.

Eleanor looked at her. “Then what do you mean? I’m going!”

“I’m sure you are. I hope you’ll have a nice time.”

Eleanor stared, her blue eyes wide. “You couldn’t possibly expect me to settle down here, in this poky hole? Why, there isn’t even a bathroom! I don’t know how I’m going to exist for the week-end; and how all of you——”

“My dear girl, there’s a perfectly good bathroom,” said Rosamund, stirred to remonstrance by a smothered explosion from Jen in the rear.

“How? Where? How can there be? There isn’t room!”

“It’s in my house,” Rosamund explained. “You forget that I have a house, as well as Audrey and Elspeth. Roderic lives in mine, and you’ll have to stay with me too, as they haven’t room for you.”

“I’m sure there never was a bathroom in that other cottage!”

“No, there never was. But there is one now. Wouldn’t you like to see it? I’ll have to ask you to excuse me,” and Rosamund left her stepmother on the threshold and hurried to the kitchen. “Take her and give her a bath, Audrey, do!” she whispered, as she piled a tray with plates of cakes and home-made scones.

Audrey laughed and took charge of the traveller.

“Come into the other house, Eleanor. I’ll show you your room. It will have to be the back room; Rosamund takes Roderic into her room at night, as the back one hasn’t space for a cradle.”

“I can’t possibly get all my things into a cupboard like this!” They heard Eleanor’s remonstrance through the open windows.

Rosamund set cakes before Jen and the teapot in front of Joy, and looked at them with raised brows.

“Don’t say anything. She’ll hear you,” she murmured. “A beauty, isn’t she?”

“You have my sympathy, Rosie,” Jen said.

“What a child she is!” Joy commented. “You’ll get the boy, Ros.”

“Oh, Ros must have him, of course! We’ll back her through thick and thin, now that we’ve seen his mother. You couldn’t leave a future earl to be brought up by that, even if she were willing to do it, which she’s not,” Jen exclaimed.

“She’s extremely pretty,” said Joy. “Do you remember your first name for her?”

“Beautiful Girl. Now I should make it Beautiful Baby,” Rosamund retorted.

Audrey came to the door of The Rose House. “Rosamund! Eleanor won’t have her tea, or do anything, till she’s spoken to you.”

Eleanor appeared behind her. “Rosamund, I want to know just what you mean,” she began plaintively. “I don’t care about tea. I’ve been worrying all the way from town, and every minute since I had Audrey’s wire on Wednesday night. I can’t wait any longer. Did you really mean that you wouldn’t keep baby for me while I go to India?”

If the customers had been real customers, Rosamund would have hustled the petulant stepmother into the house and closed the door. But since they knew the whole story, and since Eleanor chose to ignore them, Rosamund very willingly allowed them to hear the discussion. They tactfully poured out tea and chose cakes; the babies and Elspeth had forgotten the time in their quest for squirrels.

Rosamund sat on the dividing wall between her own front garden and the Squirrel forecourt.

“I’ll keep baby for you, and you can go to India and have a good time. But it’s on one condition,” she said.

Eleanor looked up at her with suspicious eyes. “What is it? You know I haven’t very much. How much do you want? Your father wanted me to have it all. You haven’t any right——”

Crash! Some china had fallen on the stones of the courtyard. Rosamund, her eyes full of fury, was glad to turn from her stepmother for an instant, to see who was the culprit.

Jen, with a very red face, was gazing at the fragments of a yellow cup. “Sorry!” she muttered, as Audrey came hurrying out with another. “I’ll make it good; mustn’t spoil your set. I could wring that girl’s neck!”

“She won’t stay here long,” Audrey remarked. “Rosamund can deal with her all right.”

Rosamund turned to Eleanor. “I’ll keep Roderic, on condition you give him to me altogether. You can go off and enjoy yourself with all the money. We don’t want a penny; I wouldn’t touch a penny of it.”

Eleanor looked at her, eyes open to their very widest. “But of course you can have him! I’ll give him to you with pleasure. You’re far more keen on him than I am. I don’t know anything about infants.”

“I’m quite aware of that. But if I take him it’s to be for always. I’m to be his guardian, and you won’t be able to demand him back again. I’m willing to adopt him, if you agree.”

“But he’s my child,” Eleanor began. “You can have him to take care of. But he’ll be my baby; you can’t get out of that.”

“He won’t. He’ll be mine,” Rosamund said curtly. “If you let me adopt him you’ll have no more to do with him.”

Eleanor stared at her. “Is that what you’re after? I say, Rosamund, why do you want him?”

“That’s my business.”

“I must have him back if I want him!”

“Then you’ll have to look after him, and pay for him.”

“I’ll ask Audrey to keep him.”

“Can’t be done,” said Audrey. “I’m being married very soon, as you know. With Rosamund eager to have your baby, it’s not likely I’m going to take him. He’ll be better off with her than with either of us. Don’t be silly enough to lose such a chance, Eleanor. I’ve seen how Rosamund cares for him. You’re very lucky to have such an offer.”

“I don’t mind her having him. But I’m not going to give him to her for keeps. He’s to be my baby. I might want him some day.”

“Then there’s nothing doing,” Rosamund said. “I’m not going to be his nursemaid. And I’m not going to be a convenience to you. I’m willing to be Roderic’s legal guardian and to take him off your hands. Now you know what I mean, and you can think it over.”

“I shall find a good nurse, or a place where they keep babies from abroad, and leave him there,” Eleanor cried.

“Do! It will cost you a hundred a year.”

Eleanor’s face fell. “Rosamund, I can’t afford it. You know I can’t.”

“I know this,” said Rosamund. “I know that Mr Braham will insist on knowing where you are leaving Roderic and that it’s a proper place. He’s Roderic’s trustee; he won’t allow you to leave the child in a cheap home. It will cost you quite a hundred.”

Eleanor quailed at mention of the lawyer. “Mr Braham hasn’t anything to do with it,” she said sulkily.

“No, but he’s going to have. I’ll see to that.”

“You’re hateful, Rosamund!”

“Hateful! When I’m offering to take your child off your hands, so that he’ll never be any more trouble or expense to you! All I’m insisting on is that you shan’t interfere just whenever you feel like it and undo all I’ve done with him.”

“What makes you think I’d undo anything?” Eleanor demanded.

“It’s obvious,” Rosamund said.

Eleanor stood frowning and kicking the gravel with her toe. “Did you mean—you didn’t mean what you said—that he’d be no expense? that you weren’t going to ask for an allowance for him? I haven’t any more than I need, you know.”

“A boy is an expensive item.” Rosamund spoke with a detached air. “Education costs a lot.”

Eleanor shot a look at her. “What would you need for Roderic? You wouldn’t ask as much as they would in one of those homes, I suppose?”

Rosamund slowly looked her up and down.

In the background Jen grasped Joy’s hand in delight. “Ros is making her squirm. I said Ros could be haughty! That’s how she’ll look when he’s the Earl of Kentisbury!”

“If I take Roderic off your hands, I won’t ask you for a penny. You can have all the money there is to buy toys with. I said it before, and I meant it. If you’ll give him to me I’ll provide for him entirely.”

Eleanor let the reference to toys pass, hardly grasping its significance. “But how? How will you educate him? You don’t expect to make a fortune out of your shop, do you?”

“I can do it. I’ll satisfy Mr Braham that I can afford to do it.”

“Mr Braham needn’t know anything about it.”

“My dear girl, I wasn’t born yesterday,” Rosamund said, with some irritation. “If you agree, it won’t be merely an understanding between us. We shall see Mr Braham, and you’ll sign proper adoption papers, and Roderic will be legally mine. Mr Braham will need to know all about it.”

“I wish you’d stop calling me your ‘dear girl’!” Eleanor flared up. “I’m your stepmother!”

“Yes, it’s the best joke of the season,” Rosamund retorted, at a smothered titter from Jen’s corner. “Are you going to think over my offer?”

“Oh, I’ll think it over!” Eleanor said, and walked away from her and stood looking down at her sleeping son. She had very little motherly feeling, and her own comfort and convenience weighed heavily against the small share she had. But there was something irrevocable in Rosamund’s suggestion from which Eleanor shrank.

“She’ll do it, but she’ll need to get used to the idea,” Jen murmured, as Rosamund came to ask if she could bring more cakes or hot water.

“You might bring our young families,” Joy said. “Has Elspeth lost them all in the woods?”

“Or drowned somebody in the pool? I shall go and investigate,” said Jen.

As she rose there came the sound of voices, however, and then with a rush the four babies were hurling themselves on their mothers, shouting of frogs and beetles and little blue birds, and pussies with big tails like brushes.

Elspeth went to fetch glasses of milk, and Jen and Rosamund lifted the twins and the boys into their chairs and bade them set to work on the bread and butter, as it was nearly time to go home. All chattering at once, they were soon very busy, and nobody remembered that there was a sleeping baby a few yards away.

Eleanor had watched the invasion with startled eyes. At a cry from Roderic she turned to him again. “You would wake up, of course! Rosamund, those children have frightened baby; you’d better come and see to him. I’m going in to have some tea.”

She went to The Squirrel House and disappeared indoors.

Rosamund picked up Roderic and hushed him, while Joy cautioned Margaret to be less noisy.

“Sowwy! I f’got the baby,” Margaret said, in a contrite tone.

“Twin always f’gets. I f’gets too,” Elizabeth said sadly.

Rosamund’s eyes met Jen’s over Roderic’s head, as he fell asleep again in her arms. “I think he’ll be mine before long.”

“I am sure he will. He’s a very lucky boy.”

“If he hadn’t you he’d stand a poor chance, Rosamunda,” said Joy.

“Here comes Lisabel! Good business!” Rosamund laid her brother down carefully. “Well, Lisabel, what have you done with Rena?”

“Left her to have it out with Rufus Courtney.” Lisabel, in gardening kit and with her flaming hair uncovered and wind-blown, looked round at the guests.

“Girl got chowsies!” Margaret proclaimed.

But this was obvious and she was ignored.

“Tell us, Lisabel!” Jen pleaded. “Is she going to have him?”

“Can’t say. One part of her wants him, but she doesn’t want to be married. I don’t know which part will win.”

“Did you go off as soon as he appeared?” Joy asked.

“Rather! I saw he meant business, so I made off by a track going downhill. Drena called me back and yelled after me that I was a rotter, but I know when I’m not wanted. I met a bus at the foot of the lane, and jumped on and came home.”

“Have they been friends for long?” Joy asked. “I liked your Drena; I hope her romance will end happily.”

“Rufe has admired her for years. I knew the boys before she did,” Lisabel said, perching on the arm of a chair and accepting a cup of tea from Rosamund with a nod of thanks. “Rufus is my age and Rex three years younger; there was a little brother, too, but he died.”

“I knew him,” Jen put in. “I danced ‘Jockie’ for him in the garden. He called me a blue fairy.”

“When Rena’s father was lost in the Atlantic—he went down with his ship—she was almost alone in the world,” Lisabel went on. “She had an aunt and cousins in London, but she knew they couldn’t afford to help her. Mrs Thorburn of Rocklands offered her a job, to help old Andrew, the gardener; Rena jumped at the chance and worked like a nigger. Rex called her Tommy, because she would wear breeches and boots. Rufe didn’t say much, but he thought a tremendous lot of her, even then. He loved her pluck and her determination; I wouldn’t be surprised if he made up his mind about her when they were both sixteen.”

“He told me he did.” Rosamund held out a plate of scones. “But he’s been away at college?”

“And doing hospitals. He’s finished his training now. We went to college too, and Rufe hasn’t seen much of Rena for years. She’s thought he’d forgotten, but that isn’t Rufe’s way.”

“She should have trusted him,” said Rosamund.

“Perhaps she did,” Jen remarked. “But if a man doesn’t say anything, a girl can’t explain that she’s waiting for him. We’ll wish her every happiness. You’ll let us know what happens, of course. Now, Ros, are we to go away without being introduced to the stepmother?”

Rosamund knit her brows. “What do you think? If she should meet you later on——”

“Yes. She might resent it and say she ought to have known who we were. It’s just possible we might have to meet her over this adoption business; your solicitors may insist on seeing us. I feel we’d better speak to her and have it over.”

“Right. I’ll go and tell her,” and Rosamund went to The Squirrel House.

“Eleanor!” she stood in the doorway. “My friends have to go home, to put their babies to bed. I’d like to introduce you. I’ve had no time to explain, but they’re the two Lady Marchwoods I used to live with. You’ve heard all about them.”

Eleanor dropped her knife with a clatter and started up. “What, the Girl Guide? You might have told me sooner!”

“You were too full of your own concerns. The Guide, or rather Ranger Captain, is the elder Lady Marchwood, who lost her husband; he was Sir Andrew, the well-known African explorer. The other one married his brother and is now Lady Marchwood also. They’ve heard about you, and they’d like to meet you.”

“I’m extremely anxious to meet them!” Eleanor was hurriedly powdering her nose before a small mirror. “You might have introduced me at once! Why wait till they were just going away?”

“They supposed you’d want some tea after your journey,” Rosamund retorted. “You look all right. Do come on!”

“Are all the kids theirs? Oh, who is the girl in breeches? What gorgeous hair! I wish I had hair like that!”

Lisabel, balanced on the side of her chair, drank her tea and looked coldly at the outspoken stranger.

“She’s a gardener friend, who is lodging at the inn. There are two of them, and they have most of their meals here, so you’ll see plenty of them. Joy, this is Mrs Kane. Eleanor—Lady Marchwood, with whom I used to live.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs Kane,” Joy said graciously, looking down at the little figure with all the dignity of her uniform.

“So sweet of you to be so good to poor dear Rosamund for all those years!” Eleanor gushed. “I’ve heard ever so much about you from her, Lady Marchwood. You can’t think what nice things she said about you.”

“This is also Lady Marchwood,” Rosamund’s tone was chilly. “Jen—my stepmother.”

Jen turned from bending over Tony, who had been threatening to choke. She looked at Rosamund, grave and tall and resolute, full of suppressed distaste for the situation her dead father had created; then she looked down at the fluffy little person and smiled.

“It is absurd, isn’t it?” Eleanor laughed nervously, for this Lady Marchwood was taller than the first one, and when she wished, as she did now, she could look extremely dignified. “Rosamund’s older than I am.”

“Yes, I should forget the relationship, if I were you. It makes you seem older than you look, to have a stepdaughter like Rosamund. I’m sure you don’t wish that,” Jen said gently.

Eleanor grew scarlet, remembering that she had been the one to remind Rosamund of their relations a few minutes earlier. Had this rather terrifying Lady Marchwood heard those foolish words?

“This adoption idea is a good one, isn’t it?” Jen went briskly to the point. “Oh, of course, Ros has talked it over with us. We’re prepared to help her in every way—I mean with advice, you know. We’ve had experience of babies; she can always come to us.”

“That’s awfully good of you,” Eleanor said uncertainly. “But I’m not sure yet that it’s really the best plan. I must think it over.”

“Oh, you don’t want to be hampered by a child,” Joy remarked. “You should leave him with Rosamund. You’ll be much more free.”

Eleanor looked up at her suspiciously. She wanted to be free and unhampered, but she did not want the fact recognised so bluntly.

“I haven’t decided yet,” she said.

“Well, I can ease your mind on one point,” Jen remarked. “Poor dear Rosamund is quite capable of taking complete charge of Roderic. I’d trust her with Andrew or Tony any day. I don’t say Andrew and Tony; that’s another matter! Come along, boys! We’re going to take Elizabeth and Margaret home in our car. Aunty Joy’s going to town to be a Girl-Guide-Ranger!”

“Muvver’s a Capting,” Margaret pointed out haughtily.

“Capting of Wangers, Twin,” Elizabeth corrected. “May I sit in front, Aunty Jen?”

“Perhaps we’ll meet again, Mrs Kane,” Joy said pleasantly, as she went to her car.

“Good-bye!” Jen nodded to the stepmother. “Sorry I haven’t time to stay and talk, but with four like these on my hands I can’t let my attention wander for a moment. Let us know about Rena, Ros. I’m aching for the end of the story.”

As Rosamund closed the door of the car, Jen added in an undertone, “The stepmother’s forgotten about Roderic being an earl, Ros.”

“I know. She’ll remember presently,” and Rosamund stood waving good-bye.

She turned from the gate and went to clear the tea-tables. Eleanor was waiting for her. “Did they know I was coming this afternoon? Did they come to see what I was like?” she demanded.

“I shouldn’t wonder. Why shouldn’t they? It’s quite a compliment, if they took so much trouble. But I didn’t ask them why they came. I know they wanted to give the children a treat, and one of their biggest treats is a Squirrel tea. That’s reason enough for their visit. It’s time for baby’s bath. Would you like to give him his tub? He does enjoy it so much.”

“I ought to unpack,” Eleanor said hurriedly. “I’m nervous when he’s wet; he’s so slippery. You’d make a fuss if I dropped him. You must be used to him by now. Wouldn’t it upset him to have any changes?”

“It might upset him to be handled by somebody who was frightened. I wouldn’t like it,” Elspeth said, addressing her sister for the first time.

“Or who was clumsy,” Audrey added. “You’d better do it, Rosamund.”

“Hello, infant! Found your tongue? I thought you weren’t going to speak to me,” Eleanor teased Elspeth. “You look at me as if I were a slug.”

Elspeth bit her lips and disappeared into the scullery.

“I’m afraid it’s how she feels,” Rosamund murmured to Roderic, as she lifted him from the cradle. “Elspeth will smash more cups, Audrey. It sounds dangerous.”

Audrey was tidying the chairs and tables. “I’ll go and help her.”

“I’m not sure that I like your Lady Marchwoods, Rosamund,” Eleanor complained.

“Oh? I’m sure they’ll be upset if they find out. What’s your objection to them?”

“So frightfully superior. That tall one is altogether too tall, and horribly condescending.”

“First time I’ve heard Brownie called that,” Rosamund remarked.

“The way she looked me up and down——!”

Audrey turned in the doorway. “You asked for it. Anything more absurd than to call Rosamund ‘poor dear Rosamund,’ I can’t imagine. They must have thought you absolutely childish.”

Eleanor pouted. “It was very nice of me to thank her.”

“You did it in a very unfortunate way,” Audrey said, and went through the house to the scullery.

“The sooner I can get away from this hateful place the better!” Eleanor muttered. “But I can’t take the kid with me. It will serve Rosamund right if I take her at her word and leave him on her hands.”

And she went up to the back room prepared for her, and looking round with a hopeless shrug, began to make the best of the very cramped quarters.

“Heigh-ho! We are a happy crowd!” Lisabel sat on the arm of a chair and swung her leg. “She’s a lovely stepmother for Rosamund, that one is! I wonder what Rufe and Rena are doing? Wish they’d come and tell us all about it.”

“No need to ask your news!” Lisabel exclaimed.

Rufus and Rena stood in the courtyard, their faces full of half-told secrets. Audrey and Elspeth came to the door of The Squirrel House; Rosamund left her baby in his cradle and came racing out to ask questions.

“Is it all right? Tell us all about it! Oh, Rena, I’m so glad!”

“We forgot one thing when we discussed marriage,” Rena confessed, her eyes bright with a new happy light. “At least, I did. You knew. There’s one man who makes it worth while to give up one’s career and all one’s plans. When he came along and asked me I forgot everything else.”

“Oh, I am glad! That’s the way it ought to happen. What does anything else matter?”

“Exactly!” said Rena, the independent. “Rufe wants me and I want him. The rest of the world doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, cheers! If I had a flag I’d hoist it for your sake,” Rosamund cried.

“I’m glad you’ve had the sense to take him,” said Lisabel, eyeing them enviously. “I suppose you’ll enjoy spending your life darning socks, if they’re Rufe’s?”

Rena laughed. “Oh, but there’s more to tell! You don’t know what’s happened!”

She stood swinging her hat and letting the wind blow her yellow curls about, and looked round at them mysteriously. “You haven’t heard. It’s most exciting; I don’t really believe it.”

There was such a glowing light in her face that Rosamund cried, “It’s something good! Tell us, Dr Courtney!”

“Dr Courtney!” Rena looked at Rupert. “Is that you? I never heard you called that before. Yes, you tell them; it’s your story. Give Lisabel the shock you gave me.”

“He isn’t going to propose to me, I hope?” Lisabel asked sarcastically. “For I can give him his answer right now. He can’t have both of us.”

“Oh, he doesn’t want two wives! Besides, think how you and he would fight; look at your hair! He’s quite satisfied with me. You’d better have——”

“Suppose I tell them the story, Drena?” Rufus interrupted, and Rena’s possible indiscretion was checked.

“Do!” She flung herself into a chair. “I’m worn out with excitement. Wait till you hear!”

Rupert turned to Lisabel. “Aunt Sheila is going to be married again——”

“Mrs Thorburn?” Lisabel cried.

“Our lady boss.” Rena took up the tale, and added explanations for the benefit of the new friends, while Lisabel listened in astounded silence. “She was nineteen when she married first, and that was twelve years ago. She only had her husband for two months, and she had no child, nothing. She nearly died of the shock; but she pulled herself together and she’s been just wonderful. If she’s going to be happy again, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”

“She’s happy,” said Rufus. “She’s like a schoolgirl. Oh, she’s happy all right. But he’s a wealthy American, and she’ll have to live in the States most of the time.”

“Then will she shut Rocklands?” Lisabel cried. “I’ll be out of a job! It’s all right for you, Rena, but what am I going to do?”

“I won’t let you down,” Rena’s eyes sparkled. “Have I ever let you down once yet, Lisabel?”

Lisabel shook her head. “But how——?”

Rupert took up the story again. “Aunt Sheila had a long talk with me yesterday. Rocklands came to her from her husband, who was my mother’s stepbrother. We call her Aunt Sheila, but that’s because she married our uncle. The house belongs to our family, though it went to her on uncle’s death. She won’t need it now, and she feels it isn’t hers to take out of the family. She always meant to leave it to us in her will; she said it must come back to us; it was our grandfather’s, and if uncle hadn’t married, it would have come to mother. So Aunt Sheila meant it to come back to us some day, though she’d meant to live in it all her life, as it was the home uncle had prepared for her. Now that she’s marrying again, she feels—don’t you see——?”

“That she has no right to it! So she’s giving it to you!” Rosamund gave a shout. “You’re the eldest son, aren’t you? No wonder Rena looks as if she’d come into a fortune!”

“Then Rocklands will belong to Rena!” Lisabel exclaimed, really startled. “How very odd!”

“Our lady boss seems to like the idea,” said Rena. “She gave Rufe her blessing and said she’d always hoped he and I would fix things up some day.”

“And will you settle down and do nothing, and give up being a doctor? After working for all these years?” Lisabel eyed Rufus curiously.

“That’s not the idea, exactly,” he answered, his face suddenly grave. “When Aunt Sheila told me that the house was to be mine, with enough money settled on it to keep it as it is now, she asked me what I’d do. I’ve had one big wish all my life—apart from Rena—and this——”

Rena sprang up and bowed. “Afraid I can’t curtsy in this costume. You shouldn’t have asked me in my Tommy-suit.”

“He fell in love with you in your Tommy-suit when you first wore it,” Lisabel said. “It wouldn’t have been the same if you’d been wearing anything else.”

“I want to tell them, Drena,” said Rupert.

Rena subsided. “Sorry. I beg your pardon. I won’t play the goat any more.”

“This makes my wish possible,” Rufus said gravely, looking at Rosamund. “You may have heard I had a small brother, who died after years of illness?”

Rosamund nodded. Lisabel sat with absorbed eyes fixed on his face.

“I want to specialise in cases like his, and see if I can’t find out ways to cure or to prevent the trouble. That was my idea in taking up medicine. I saw no hope of doing anything much; I thought I’d have to practise for years, and save, and work slowly. I told Aunt Sheila, and I found she’d had the same idea, and had been hoping I’d do it, but she wouldn’t say anything to suggest it to me. Now there’s no need for me to wait or to spend time on general work. I shall go on studying in this particular line; presently I shall take a few resident patients at Rocklands, and watch them carefully. I’ve ideas on treatment that ought to be worked out, and a London man I know is keen to work with me and says he’s sure I’m on the right lines. Aunt Sheila’s new plans make it possible, and it’s the way she’d like Rocklands to be used, above all things.”

“It’s a glorious plan!” Rosamund exclaimed. “And Rena will go on looking after the garden as she has been going, only now it will be her own. Rena, you aren’t going to give up your job, after all!”

Rena laughed. “I love every corner of that old garden. But I can’t do it alone; I shall need Lisabel. You mustn’t go and marry too, Liza!”

“Nobody’s asked me yet,” Lisabel retorted. “I’ll be glad to work at Rocklands, with you for boss.”

“It will be queer!” Rena said reflectively.

“Will you like having patients in your house?” Audrey asked.

Rena and Rufus laughed. “It’s big enough,” he said. “They won’t worry her.”

“Will you still let the school use one wing in the summer term?” Lisabel asked. “They’ll miss it, if you don’t.”

“Oh, rather! I’ll love to have the girls there. I couldn’t let Miss Maitland down. Mrs Thorburn wants us to keep the house as it is; she’ll come and stay with us whenever she’s in England. We shan’t change anything.”

“Aren’t you very happy about it? I should be envious, if I hadn’t everything I want already,” Rosamund said.

“Happy? I’d be happy to-day if I were going to live in a hovel! I can hardly believe it’s to be at Rocklands—that that lovely place is to be ours. Happy isn’t the word.”

“No, ‘ours’ is the word that matters,” said Rupert.

Rena laughed. “All the same, it’s a good thing you didn’t tell me until I’d said yes! I might have been tempted.”

“Any one might be tempted to take even Rufus for the sake of having Rocklands thrown in,” Lisabel mocked. “He didn’t tell you first, then?”

“I didn’t mean that. I might have been tempted to refuse him, for fear I was only taking him because Rocklands was such a temptation,” Rena explained. “I’m glad I didn’t know. He didn’t tell me for nearly half an hour.”

“And is Rex not to have anything at all?” Lisabel’s tone was grudging. “That isn’t fair. He ought to have a share.”

“Rex and Teesa are to have five hundred a year each,” Rupert explained. “It’s to come from Rocklands; Rena and I are only to have what’s left. As Teesa’s married it’s enough for her. Rex has half a dozen schemes, but he won’t settle to any of them.”

“Rena should have married him and made up his mind for him,” Lisabel said bitingly.

“I’m leaving that to you. My mind’s made up. When Rex grows up, he’ll settle down.”

“Me! I’m not interested in Rex,” Lisabel protested. “It’s you Rex wanted. Does he know——?”

She looked at Rufus.

“There wasn’t anything to know until this afternoon, was there, Drena? He knows how I’ve felt for years.”

“No, you couldn’t say anything till you’d asked her,” Lisabel agreed. “It will be a shock to Rex. He’ll be round here in tears in a day or two.”

“You can deal with him,” Rena suggested. “Rufe and I are off to Rocklands to see Aunt Sheila. You’ll carry on in the garden up there, won’t you, Lisabel?”

“People will think it funny if you appear there as the mistress of the house.”

“I’m dying to see old Andrew’s face when he hears I’m to be the new missus! He’s the gardener who taught me first,” Rena explained to Rosamund. “He’s eighty, and retired on a pension; but he still potters about the garden. He called me his ‘laddie’ when I began to work for him; we’re great pals. I shall tell Andra first of all.”

“Audrey, will you give the young people their tea?” Rosamund suggested. “I must go and tub Roderic. I was making preparations when they came in, and as he was asleep I left him and came flying down.”

Rena followed her up to the bedroom. “Hasn’t his mother come? May I come in, Rosamund?”

“Oh, she’s come. She’s unpacking, in the little room.”

“Isn’t she going to attend to him herself?”

“She’s scared of him. And she does it very badly. I’d much rather have him, and I’m sure he’d rather have me.” Rosamund was undressing the baby with quick deft hands.

Rena watched, with eyes which held deep secret thoughts. “I don’t care about tea. I’m too thrilled! It’s wonderful to feel I shall have a home, Rosamund.”

Rosamund looked up quickly. “I know; you must feel that, more than most would do. I am so glad, Drena!”

“I’d go anywhere with Rufus. I’ve always known I would, if he asked me,” Rena admitted. “But while he didn’t say anything it was no use thinking about it, and I’ve loved my job and my working days. But all the time there was the feeling behind that I had no real home; it was restless, and I wasn’t satisfied. Now I shall settle down.”

“You’ll be happier than you’ve ever been. I’m so glad it happened here!”

“You’ll come and see us at Rocklands, won’t you?”

“I’d love to, some day. Jen’s house, The Grange, is quite near, isn’t it? How pleased she’ll be! Does she know Dr Courtney?”

“They haven’t met for years. He met her when she was a schoolgirl; just as I did.”

“We’ll go along after you’ve had tea and talk to her on the ’phone,” Rosamund suggested. “You’d better have some tea! You’ll be fainting with nervous excitement.”

Rena laughed. “I’ll go down, chiefly because I want to talk to Rufe again. He’s going to get a bed somewhere in the village for the night, and to-morrow we shall go home. But I’ll come back to finish my job here; we aren’t going to be married on the spot! I love seeing you wash that infant! You’re so neat and gentle.”

Rosamund followed her down presently, and they were all talking round the big table in the Squirrel front room, for dusk was falling outside, when Eleanor appeared in the doorway leading to The Rose House.

“Rosamund, I know now what you’re after; why you want baby!” Then she stopped, staring at Rena. “What has she done with her lovely hair? She was like a golliwog on fire—oh, there are two of them! Oh, I see!”

Lisabel had risen on the other side of the room. “The golliwog on fire is still here,” she said solemnly, and sat down again.

Eleanor’s eyes had fastened on the good-looking man who stood beside the yellow-haired gardener girl. Could he be the man who was going to marry Audrey? Surely he was too young?

“It’s odd to see a man in The Squirrel House,” she said.

She was very pretty, very appealing, with her fluffy flaxen curls and wide eyes, as she hesitated in the doorway. Her black dress heightened her fairness and increased her pathetic look.

“Dr Courtney and Rena have just told us they’re going to be married,” Audrey said. “We’re congratulating them on their engagement. This is my sister, Mrs Kane, Rena.”

“Oh! I hope you’ll be very happy.” Eleanor’s interest faded. A handsome young doctor who was engaged to another girl did not thrill her. She ignored the couple, who were amused to find themselves no longer the centre of importance, and turned to Rosamund again.

“You’re hoping baby will come into the title, and you’re trying to get him away from me for that reason. You weren’t going to say a word about it. I won’t give him to you; I’m glad I remembered.”

“Then you’ll have to make other arrangements for him. You’ll find it expensive.”

“I shan’t make any. Then you’ll have to keep him here. But I shall take him back when I want him.”

Rosamund looked at her, and then at Audrey.

“You won’t do that. I’ll see that you don’t,” Audrey retorted. “What’s this about a title, Rosamund? You hadn’t told me.”

“There was no need. It may never happen. There are two people to come before Roderic. But my father’s uncle is the very old Earl of Kentisbury,” Rosamund explained. “His heir is his grandson, a schoolboy. If he grows up and marries and has a son, Roderic will never be anywhere near being an earl.”

“But if anything happens to the boy at school, there’s only a cripple, who can’t marry, and Roderic is the next heir,” Eleanor rapped out. “If you think I’m going to hand him over to you and give up all claim to him, you’re very much mistaken.”

Elspeth was leaning forward, her elbows on the table, bewildered excitement in her eyes. “Audrey, Eleanor mustn’t bring him up, if he may be an earl some day! She simply isn’t good enough!”

There was a smothered laugh from Rena and a chuckle from Lisabel, as Eleanor whirled round in a passion.

“Elspeth, how dare you say that! You’re a silly child, and abominably rude. Audrey, send her to bed!”

Audrey was looking troubled. Elspeth, shrinking and scarlet under the amusement her remark had caused, had expressed exactly what she herself would have liked to say.

“I had no idea of this. Rosamund, you didn’t tell me the boy was likely to be so important one day.”

“It may never happen. At present he’s no more important than any other baby. What is important is that he should be taken care of, and properly trained, and not dropped in his bath when he’s wet and slippery.”

Rena laughed aloud at that. Eleanor gave her an angry stare.

“I don’t mind Rosamund bringing him up for a year or two, but——”

“While you go off and enjoy yourself,” said Rosamund. “And in a few years you’ll come back and take him from me and start spoiling him.”

“Why do you say I’d spoil him?”

“Oh, my dear girl, I’ve seen you!”

“I’m not going to give him up,” Eleanor said definitely.

“Then stay at home and take care of him.”

“But I’ve been asked to go to India. Why shouldn’t I go? I can’t stay in this hole all my life! I must do the best I can for myself. Everybody does.”

Rosamund looked at her, and treasured the remark to repeat to Jen.

Audrey interposed. “Some people think first of doing the best for their children.”

“It’s better for baby to have Rosamund to take charge of him,” Eleanor said sulkily.

Rosamund laughed. “Thank you! I think so myself, stepmother.”

Rupert Courtney’s eyes widened and he looked from her to the indignant little person in the doorway. Then he looked at Rena, who nodded. “Absurd, isn’t it? Aren’t some men silly? Her father was sixty, and he married that!”

“Hard on Miss Rosamund,” Rufus murmured.

“I’m willing to take Roderic off your hands, if you’ll let me adopt him properly; and I won’t ask you to pay anything towards his keep or his education.” Rosamund turned to Eleanor and spoke distinctly. “But if you won’t let him be legally mine, for always, you can take him with you to India.”

“I’ll take him away from you and leave him with a good nurse,” Eleanor said furiously.

“Then you’ll have heavy bills to pay.”

“Rosamund, don’t be so difficult!” Eleanor changed her tactics suddenly. “I’ll pay you what he costs, if you’ll keep him here. It won’t be much just now, and it’s a good place for him. It will suit him to be brought up in the country. And you want to have him! Don’t be horrid, Rose!”

“I want him altogether,” Rosamund said grimly.

“You haven’t any right to ask me to give up my child!”

Rosamund shrugged her shoulders. “I believe it will be better for the child.”

Audrey spoke very gravely. “Eleanor, you must think this over carefully. I’m not wishing to be unkind, but I do agree with Rosamund. She is much more mature than you, and much more fitted to bring up a child. She offers you freedom from all responsibility and worry; you’ll be able to go your own way and enjoy yourself, and——”

“And do the best you can for yourself,” Rosamund added. “We all know what that means. Go off to India and do your best; we’ll wish you luck!”

Eleanor glared at her. “What do you mean?”

Rosamund shrugged her shoulders again. “Give me Roderic, for good and all, and you’ll soon find out what I mean.”

“You’ll be foolish if you refuse such a good offer, Eleanor,” Audrey said. “The bare chance of the boy’s succeeding to the earldom in the future isn’t reason enough, it seems to me.”

“Don’t you think father’s solicitors will prefer that I should have him?” Rosamund demanded. “I’m much more one of the family than Eleanor is. I can’t have the title, being merely a woman; at least, not without an Act of Parliament or something. But I’m one of the family, and Eleanor has merely married into it. I shall have to see Mr Braham on that point!”

“He’ll probably prefer it, even without that. You’re a much more responsible person than Eleanor,” Audrey remarked. “But what will happen, if the lawyers are called in, is that they’ll insist on her supporting her son.”

“They can’t. The money’s left to me.” Eleanor looked alarmed and defiant.

Rena gave an exclamation of disgust. “Do you mean that you won’t even pay for him?”

“I’ve said I’ll pay for him. But if Rosamund’s going to call him hers she can pay the bills.”

“I hope we won’t go on having scenes like this,” Rosamund said wearily. “I don’t know why you’re making such a fuss. If Roderic becomes the earl, you can come home and be photographed with him and have your picture in the papers as ‘the young Earl and his mother.’ I suppose that’s what you want. But if I’ve adopted him you won’t interfere in the plans I’ve made for him.”

“Seems to me you’ll get a very good bargain,” Lisabel said abruptly. “That is, seeing that you don’t want the baby.”

“Let’s go to the village and settle Dr Courtney for the night and ’phone to Jen.” Rosamund rose. “I’ve had enough of this. Audrey, you’ll go if he cries, won’t you?”

“With pleasure. I love him,” Audrey said. “If I hadn’t other plans I’d like to have him myself.”

And Eleanor, sulky and defiant and uncertain, was left alone with Elspeth, who promptly cleared the table and shut herself into the scullery with the dirty dishes.

Rena’s departure with Rupert next morning left Lisabel lonely. She wandered about by herself during Sunday afternoon and sat in the Squirrel forecourt after tea. Elspeth, at a hint from Audrey, shyly invited her to come into the woods for a walk, but Lisabel was restless and seemed unwilling to go, and Elspeth shrank sensitively, and went to her beloved pool alone.

Audrey went out with Charles Elmslie, as she did most evenings. Rosamund sat beside Roderic’s cradle, writing to friends in Switzerland.

Eleanor came out of The Rose House and joined them. “What a hole this is! I can’t stick it for long. I say, Rosamund, the Dentons are sailing for Calcutta on Friday.”

“As soon as that?” Rosamund knit her brows. “You haven’t long to make up your mind.”

“I’ve made it up. I want to go with them.”

Rosamund said nothing; they had been over it all so often.

Eleanor glanced at her. “Don’t be a pig, Rosamund. You’ll keep baby for me, won’t you?”

“On my own terms. I’ve told you the conditions.”

“But I may want him some day! And he is my child. You’re absurd.”

“No outsider staying here would think he was yours.” Lisabel feared nobody and said what she liked. “Anybody would suppose he was Rosamund’s. You don’t do a thing for him.”

“What business is it of yours?” Eleanor snapped.

“You don’t even have him at nights. He sleeps in her room; I know, because I’ve heard him crying, and her windows are opposite mine.”

“You let him yell for hours last night.” Eleanor turned on Rosamund. “It isn’t good for him; he’ll hurt himself.”

Rosamund laughed. “Seems all right to-day.”

“It disturbs the whole house. In a poky place like this you oughtn’t to let him howl straight on.”

“He was being very naughty. It was too early for his feed—an hour too soon. He must keep regular hours.”

“As if it mattered! He’s only two months old. I nearly came in to take him from you.”

Rosamund laughed again. “But instead you put your head under the bedclothes and went to sleep. He’s learning regular habits—I’m certain it matters, even now; but he’s very little and he doesn’t quite understand. I didn’t keep him waiting too long. Sorry your rest was disturbed.”

“Now he’s going to start,” Eleanor grumbled, as Roderic stirred and whimpered and then began to cry. “Is he hungry?”

Rosamund lifted the child and laid him face downwards on her knee and clapped his back gently. “No—wind. He had his tea an hour ago. There, my mannie, is that better? Like a drink of water? Give me that bottle and the spoon, please, Lisabel.”

She righted the baby and deftly gave him a sip of dill-water from the spoon. He gurgled, and sighed, and dropped off to sleep again. She held him gently and watched him for a few minutes, then laid him in the cradle and took up her letter again.

Eleanor had watched, half enviously. “I shouldn’t have known what to do,” she owned to herself. “Rosamund, I can’t take a baby back to India,” she broke out.

“Of course not. You’ll have to stay with him here. If The Rose and Squirrel is too cramped, you could live in town, though it would be a pity, for Roderic’s sake.”

“But I’d be all alone with him!” Eleanor cried, aghast. “I’d be bored stiff!”

“You’d have a good nurse, of course. Expensive, no doubt, but children are expensive.”

“You’re brutal,” Eleanor almost sobbed. “It’s all so simple, if only you’d be reasonable! This is a lovely place for him, and you like to have him.”

Rosamund went on writing to Karen at the Platz, where her mother had died, and did not look at the pretty little fury who had taken that mother’s place.

The gate clicked, and they all looked up, to see a tall young man standing there.

“Gracious me!” and Eleanor sat up and ran her fingers through her curls.

“It’s Rex,” Lisabel said. This was what she had been waiting for. “I’m not surprised. I wonder if he knows about Rena and Rufus?”

“Is this Dr Courtney’s younger brother?” Rosamund asked, and put down her pad and went to greet him.

“Is it Mr Courtney? Your brother was here last night.”

Rex was taller than Rupert, fair-haired and very boyish. “I know,” he said plaintively. “I had lunch with them as they passed through town. They’ve gone to take possession of Rocklands. I came to talk it over with Lisabel. Rena said she’d be here.”

Rosamund glanced at Lisabel, more than suspecting that her feelings to Rex were what Rena’s had been to Rufus before he went to find her on the hills.

“I’m here.” Lisabel lay in her chair and looked up at him. “Isn’t it jolly about Rena and Rufe?”

“Topping!” said Rex coolly. “Now that they’ve fixed things up, you and I can go ahead too. What about it, Liza?”

“Well, really!” Lisabel sat up with a jerk, her face flaming as well as her hair. “Rex Courtney, what do you mean? For a year you’ve been hanging round Rena, teasing her to marry you. The very day you hear she’s engaged to Rufus you come and—what do you mean, you infant?”

“I was only practising on Rena,” Rex said audaciously. “She always thought of me as just a kid. I knew there was no risk of her saying yes. Gosh, Liza! Those two have been keen on one another since they were at school. I’ve known all about old Rufe’s feelings; and I guess you’ve known Rena’s. I couldn’t ask any girl in earnest when I hadn’t a penny beyond my salary; Rufe isn’t the only chap with decent feelings who waited till he’d something to offer. I couldn’t marry till I could give a girl a home. Now I can do it, thanks to Aunt Sheila. So it’s time to get to business. How soon will you think of it?”

“Not for years!” Lisabel snapped. “You can’t change girls just as you’d change hats. Did you tell Rena you’d been playing with her?”

“My aunt, no! You can give me away, if you like. I wept when they broke the news; wept long and noisily. Rena said you were to comfort me.”

Lisabel looked at him suspiciously. For months she had smarted under his apparent preference for Rena. Knowing that Rena and Rufus would come together as soon as Rufus made it possible, she had been irritated by Rex’s persistent following of Rena, and had felt herself ignored and unwanted, while Rena seemed to have the choice of the two brothers. Her sense of frustration, of being cheated out of something by life, had been strong all through her difficult girlhood, and had been still stronger when the boy who had attracted her had seemed to prefer her friend.

“Of course, you were sure to like Rena better than me. Anybody would,” she said. “I’m not grousing at that. But you can’t expect me to believe——”

“I’ll tell you something, shall I?” Rex began in a confidential tone. “When you two came back from coll., both Rufe and I felt it was serious. Here you were, grown up and frightfully pleased with yourselves and your job; of course you were! We felt like worms. He had a year or two more before his Finals, and I had a job at three pounds a week. How could either of us think of marrying? He hadn’t the cheek to ask Rena to be engaged and to wait till he’d set up in practice; it might have meant years. He felt it wasn’t fair to ask her. And I hadn’t the pluck to ask you to settle down with me on three pounds a week. What did we do? Rufe plunged into his work and didn’t see anything of Rena. I fooled round and saw a lot of you both; but I simply didn’t dare to tell you what I was really after. I played about and asked Rena to marry me umpteen times, knowing well enough she’d have nobody but old Rufe; I knew she wasn’t taken in. If she’d suddenly said yes, I’d have been in a hole—but I was going to refer her to my brother. But I knew I was safe enough. And all the time I was able to see a lot of you, without giving myself away. Now that’s a true statement; you can tear me to bits, if you like. ’Course, what I’m really scared of is your hair.”

Lisabel, stunned and breathless by the speed with which he had spoken, could only stare at him wide-eyed.

“If you’d shave, or wear a cap all over it, I’d have plucked up courage to ask you before, I guess,” Rex explained. “Hair like that means—well, you used to flare out at us when we were all kids. I guess you’ll scratch my eyes out a few times before we settle down. We shall fight like cats; but that’s all part of the fun. Will you risk it, if I will, Liza?”

Lisabel sprang up, all her hot temper surging in her face. “No, I won’t. You’re just an infant. I won’t hear any more. You can go right back to town!”

She turned toward the gate. Rex said coolly, “Oh, it’s not town I’m going to. I’m off to Egypt on Friday. Thought you ought to know how matters really stand before I go.”

“On Friday?” Eleanor had been listening in breathless interest, unheeded by Rex or Lisabel. Now she interrupted with an eager cry. “Oh, what fun! Perhaps I’m sailing on the same boat. It isn’t quite decided yet.”

Lisabel turned and stared at her. It was one thing to refuse Rex hotly, but quite another to send him off on a voyage with a girl like Eleanor Kane, without having any claim on him.

Rex looked round at the speaker. “Good business!” he said heartily. “Going to Cairo? We’ll talk about Liza on the journey, since you’re a friend of hers.—My firm’s sending me to Cairo for six months,” he explained to Lisabel. “It was only fixed up a few days ago. Another chap who was to go has fallen out—down with ’flu.”

“I’m going to Calcutta, if I go at all.” Eleanor looked round for Rosamund, who had disappeared when the conversation became acutely personal.

She appeared now with a tray, with glasses and bottles of mineral waters. “Lemonade or ginger beer? I’m sure you’d like a drink.”

“Topping of you!” Rex said gratefully. “It’s thirsty work explaining you’ve made an ass of yourself.”

“Is that what you’ve been doing? Hard lines!” Rosamund set down the tray. “Suppose you open bottles instead.”

“Much more in my line.” Rex came to help, but kept one eye on Lisabel.

She stood irresolutely. “Are you really going away? Or are you fooling me again?”

“He’s going as far as Port Said on the ship I’m going on, so you’d better introduce him to me, Rosamund,” said Eleanor.

“Oh, are you going?” Rosamund asked innocently. “Mr Rex Courtney—Mrs Kane.”

Rex, startled by the “Mrs,” glanced at the cradle.

“Oh, he isn’t going!” Eleanor explained, with a quick upglance, which Lisabel noted. “Babies are such a nuisance when one’s travelling. Rosamund’s going to keep him till I come back.”

Rosamund lifted Roderic from his bed. “Lisabel, would you mind very much carrying the cradle upstairs for me? It’s too cold for him out here. No, don’t bother, please!” as Rex sprang to help. “I want to speak to Lisabel. The cradle isn’t heavy. Eleanor, see that he takes something to drink. Lisabel will be down again in two minutes.”

In the quiet of the kitchen of The Rose House, where they could not be overheard, Rosamund turned to Lisabel. “I ran away because I thought he was going to propose to you on the spot.”

“He did, in a way.” Lisabel’s face burned, and she poured out the story. “How can I know what to believe? He’s an idiot—but he always has been; he’s always fooled about. He may mean it this time. I want to wait till I’m sure. But—if he’s going on that boat with her——”

“She’ll play with him,” said Rosamund. “She won’t have him, but she might fascinate him and then break his heart. Pretty little widows are dangerous! It’s risky to send him off not knowing whether he can have you or not. He may only play, too; but it might be serious on his side. If he wasn’t going on that boat, or if she wasn’t, I should say—wait a while and try to get him to be sensible, if he can. But as it is—could you marry him before Friday and go with him?”

“Idiot!” said Lisabel.

“Sorry. It’s not a time for ragging. I should let him ask you properly, and then I should say yes,” Rosamund advised. “Let him be engaged to you before he goes. You won’t marry him till you’re convinced he’s in earnest; after the way he’s played about, he owes it to you to prove that he means it this time. But you must certainly be engaged to him if he’s going away for six months, and if the first few days are to be spent on a ship with my stepmother! She’s going to play with every man and boy she meets, and some of them will think she’s in earnest.”

“That’s how I feel,” Lisabel said restlessly. “Will you help me, Rosamund?”

“Rather! What can I do?”

“I’ll slip out the back way and run into The Dragon. I must have time to think. He can’t be meaning to go back to town to-night, can he?”

“I shouldn’t think so. He can go to The White Horse, as his brother did last night. I’ll tell him he can’t see you until the morning, shall I?”

“Tell him I’ll be working in the garden to-morrow,” and Lisabel fled, out into the garden, and by the back gate to the inn.

Rosamund laid Roderic in his cradle, and went out to give the message. The courtyard was already shadowy, while indoors it had been almost dark.

“Lisabel has gone home,” she said. “You can see her in the morning, if you care enough to stay till then.” And she told him of the inn, and of the garden where Lisabel would be working.

Rex’s face fell. “I’m staying till this thing is settled, of course. But I don’t want to wait till the morning.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to wait. You took her by surprise. It isn’t fair to demand an answer in that way,” Rosamund said severely.

Rex’s boyish manner dropped from him. “I say, Miss Kane! You must think me an awful ass?”

“I do, rather, since you ask me,” Rosamund admitted.

“I won’t fool with Liza when I get her alone.”

“I hope you won’t. I’ve no way to tell how she feels about you—no, I haven’t anything to say about it. I can’t possibly tell you one way or the other. But if she cares about you at all, it must have been horribly hard for her to see you running after Rena.”

“I never once asked Rena in earnest,” Rex protested. “It was always as a joke, and she knew it was a joke.”

“It may not have been a joke to Lisabel. It seems to me a foolish sort of joke.”

“I’ve always pulled their legs!”

Rosamund shrugged her shoulders. “You’d better go to the inn, and think hard how to convince Lisabel you aren’t doing it again. It’s a dangerous game.”

“I’ve wanted her for years,” he broke out. “She’s had a rotten time. She had no chance as a kid; losing her father when she was twelve messed up everything for her. Rena’s been a brick and has worked Lisabel into things all along; but poor Liza has known she was being hauled on by Rena. She’s felt as if she was Rena’s shadow—as if people put up with her because they wanted Rena, and Rena wouldn’t leave her out. Nobody’s ever wanted Liza for herself; no one but Rena. I want to put that right. I’m a clumsy idiot, perhaps; but it seemed easier to fool with them than to be in deadly earnest. Lisabel used to fly at us so, when we were all kids together. I saw no chance of the real thing before; I hadn’t anything good enough to offer her. Rena knew I couldn’t marry on my screw. I can marry now, and I want Liza and nobody else.”

“If you can make her believe that, she may be nice to you in time,” and Rosamund directed him to the village inn and sent him off, looking downcast.

“Perhaps this will help him to grow up. He needs it,” she said grimly, as she turned from the gate. “Lisabel could do him all the good in the world, if she’d take on the job, and he’d be good for her too. She’s too solemn for words at times!—I didn’t know you’d decided to go with your friends, Eleanor.”

“It depends on you,” Eleanor said sulkily. “You aren’t really going to refuse to keep baby, are you?”

Rosamund looked at her, and walked away into the cottage, where Roderic was protesting loudly against her interest in other people’s love affairs.

“All right, my mannie! He shall have his tub now, and then a nice supper. Oh, young Roderic, what a trying sort of parent you have! If you could choose, I’m sure you’d rather belong to me.”

And as she undressed him Rosamund sang a paraphrase of an old mountain folk-song:

“That’s what it’s coming to! At least, I hope so. There’s a nice bath for Baby alone! That’s a good boy!

Rena, radiant still and very hungry, walked into The Squirrel House about seven o’clock on Monday evening. “Where’s everybody? Where’s Lisabel? Did Rex turn up here yesterday?”

Rosamund came from the scullery, where she had been doing Roderic’s washing to the accompaniment of “Baby alone and I.”

“Rena Mackay, did you go to Sheffield and turn round and come back again? You only left yesterday morning.”

“Must get on with my job. I’m going to see this one through before I give notice to Aunt Sheila. We were home by tea-time yesterday, and Rufe ran me back on his motor-bike this afternoon. We didn’t go near London; it doesn’t take more than half a day, if you go direct, with no hanging about at stations. What about Rex and Lisabel, Rosamund?”

“That’s what I’m aching to know. She had lunch here, but she hadn’t seen him then—not to-day. She hasn’t been in to tea yet.”

“But it’s seven o’clock! She’s two hours late. Did you see him? Did he come here?”

“He walked in and proposed to her yesterday afternoon.”

“What—on the spot?” Rena’s eyes danced. “He is an idiot! I’ve always told her so.”

“On the spot, and with me and the stepmother present. I fled, but Eleanor stayed to enjoy it.”

“Did Liza slay him?”

“Nearly. She flew out at him, and then went off to The Dragon. But she left a message with me that she’d be working in the garden this morning. I sent him to The White Horse, looking very blue at having to wait till to-day. But he didn’t turn up this morning. I think Lisabel was worried, though she didn’t say much.”

“She’ll be terrified that she’s scared him off,” Rena said. “She’s been keen on Rex for years, but the silly boy wouldn’t be serious. Lisabel will be frightened. I shall have to look Rex up.”

“Is he in earnest now? He seems to have played the goat so far, but just when he was going away I thought perhaps he had come to his senses.”

“Oh, dead earnest. He always fools; but if Lisabel would only marry him he’d settle down and learn sense. Of course, they’re both too young! You know I consider Liza quite four years younger than her age; she’s more like twenty-one than twenty-five. Rex is twenty-two; they’re just children! But they could be engaged for a year or two; it would help to settle them both.”

“I believe it would,” Rosamund agreed. “Lisabel would be quite different, I’m sure.”

“Even to me it makes an enormous difference to know I’ve a home and a big future before me,” Rena said joyously. “Much as I love my job, I don’t want to grow beans and geraniums all my life! But for Lisabel it’s a still bigger thing. To feel that Rex really wants her, that she matters more than anybody else to him, is what she’s wanted all her life. It will be just everything to her.”

“I’ll get you some tea.” Rosamund hung up the little garments and put on the kettle.

“Make enough for three,” Rena hinted.

“Is Dr Courtney outside?”

“No, he raced back to town. But the other young couple may walk in—didn’t I say so?”

Rosamund threw one look at Lisabel’s face. Then she began to sing:

“But I say, ‘Baby alone and I.’ Congrats and good wishes, Mr Courtney!”

Lisabel’s face was changed; the dour, unsatisfied look was gone, and her eyes were shining. She had thrown off her hat, and her glowing hair was tossed back, wilder and redder than ever.

“I couldn’t let Rena have all the fun,” she said.

Rena leapt upon her, without a look at Rex, who was one broad grin in the background.

“Lisabel, you’ve made him be sensible at last! Oh, it is fun! You won’t be left behind, even in this! If I get engaged, you go and do it too! How they’ll all laugh at us! But we don’t care, do we? Can you keep him in order, Lisabel?”

“Not she!” said Rex. “I’m going to keep her up to the mark. But she does believe I’m in earnest, for once. It’s the one and only time; I’ve promised her that.”

sang Rosamund, as she set the table for three, while the three all talked at once.

“Most appropriate for garden damozels! Poor Mrs Thorburn, losing you both at once!”

“Oh, but she won’t be there!” Rena explained. “She knows all about Rex! She told me to wire if he’d been sensible for once, and if Lisabel had forgiven him.”

“It wasn’t easy. But he needs looking after. He isn’t fit to be let loose alone,” Lisabel said, coming to help Rosamund. “Do you know what he was doing this morning? He took the bus to town to buy me this, to make up for what he said about my hair yesterday,” and she showed a ruby ring.

“Oh, Liza! The last colour you ought to wear!” Rena cried. “Mine’s going to be sapphires; I love the deep blue. Make him change yours for emeralds!”

“I’m not going to wear it on my head. I like rubies,” Lisabel retorted. “It was absurd of him to buy it before I’d said yes, wasn’t it?”

“But you didn’t mind?” Rosamund asked in a low tone, as they went out to the scullery.

Lisabel’s eyes were like fire. “It made me know he really wanted me. He couldn’t believe I’d say anything but yes. He says he’s always felt we belonged to one another. I hadn’t any idea; I thought he meant it when he teased Rena. But he’s wanted me all along. Rosamund, it’s a wonderful thing to be certain of!”

“I’m awfully glad it’s happened to you!” Rosamund said warmly. “That’s two—no, three—weddings The Rose and Squirrel is responsible for! I am so glad I took you in as boarders!”

“I wish you could know what it feels like, too.”

“I! I’m quite content,” Rosamund said, laughing. “I think I’m the kind that doesn’t marry. My hands are full just now, anyway.”

“I suppose she’ll leave the boy with you, if she goes on Friday? I told Rex all about her.”

Rosamund’s face clouded. “She says now she doesn’t know that she is going. She’ll have to make up her mind to-morrow.”

“She’s afraid he’ll be an earl sometime, and she’ll be left out.”

“I know. That’s the whole trouble. It isn’t Roderic she wants, but what Roderic may become some day. I shall ask her to-morrow morning what she’s decided to do.”

“Where is she now?” Lisabel asked.

“In her room. She spends hours there, dress-making. She really means to go, but she won’t give in about Roderic.”

“You’ll have to be very firm.”

“I’m as firm as the hills. It’s for his sake; it would ruin him to be given up to her in a year or two.”

“Oh, absolutely,” Lisabel agreed. “You couldn’t do it.”

Next morning Rosamund flung her question at Eleanor without any warning. She was ironing Roderic’s little frock when her stepmother came downstairs, carrying a big cardboard box wrapped up for the post.

“I’m going to the village,” she said.

“And are you going to India on Friday?”

“Yes, I am,” Eleanor said defiantly.

“Then I’m going to write and ask Mr Braham to come here and bring papers for you to sign, giving Roderic to me.”

Eleanor grew scarlet with anger, and walked out of the house.

Rosamund finished her ironing, and sat down and wrote to the lawyer, stating briefly that it seemed best that Roderic should be entrusted to her legally, as his mother was likely to be abroad during his childhood, and asking Mr Braham himself to come to The Squirrel House, bringing the necessary papers, as soon as possible.

“He’s sure to have a car. We’re only an hour and a half from London. He’ll want to see where Roderic’s going to live. I’ll tell him she’s sailing on Friday; then he’ll come to-morrow, if he can.”

To her intense surprise Eleanor returned from the village in an altered mood.

“I’ve been thinking it really will be better for you to have baby altogether, Rose,” she said amiably. “If Mr Braham could come on Thursday, I could go back to town with him and spend the night with the Dentons in their hotel. It would be better than starting from here very early on Friday.”

Rosamund agreed, much astonished. “I’ll ask him to come on Thursday morning, then. Will that do?”

“Splendidly. I’m sure you’ll be good to baby, and I may want to stay in India for some time. I’ve heaps of friends there.”

“I’m sure you have.” Rosamund went out to post her letter, feeling bewildered, but relieved.

Eleanor ran up to her room, and dropped on her bed and laughed.

“Jen! I want Jen, please!” Rosamund’s call was urgent. It was early on Thursday morning; she had raced to the village, hatless, and with a coat thrown over her working smock; her eyes were desperate and full of smouldering anger.

“What’s happened, Rosie?” Jen’s voice came, thin but clear, over the wire.

“Eleanor’s bolted. What shall I do?”

“Bolted? Oh! She’s gone without signing anything? Oh, what a dirty trick!”

“The lawyer was to come this morning.” Rosamund’s voice shook, but she steadied it with an effort. “I thought she’d given in too easily. She must have crept out last night; we turn in early, you know. There’s a man with a taxi in the village; she’d be too late for a bus, but she must have arranged to be driven in to catch the late train to London. She sails to-morrow; and Mr Braham’s due here at eleven. Jen, what can we do?”

“Ring up again in about an hour, Ros,” Jen said promptly. “Ken’s shaving, and I’m only a quarter dressed. I’ll talk to him as soon as he’s ready. He’ll know what to do. Can you come back in an hour?”

“Rather! You’re a brick, Jen.” Rosamund’s voice quivered now. “I knew you’d help. My one thought was to fly to you.”

“That’s what we’re for, my dear. Don’t worry too much, Rosie! Ken will know what to do.”

Rosamund hung up the receiver and wandered restlessly about until it was time to ring up the Manor again. She dropped in at The Squirrel House to tell Audrey what Jen had said, and drank a hasty cup of tea, but would not stay for breakfast.

Audrey’s face was dark with anger against her sister. “Rosamund, I’m ashamed of Eleanor! Tell me anything I can do to help.”

“I’m sick to death of her,” said Elspeth. Eleanor’s treachery had been a real shock to her.

“Only keep an eye on that poor kid till I hear what Kenneth advises,” Rosamund answered Audrey’s offer. “Jen didn’t sound as if it was hopeless; I believe they’ll see me through. They will, I know, if it can be done. Perhaps Kenneth will have some plans,” and she hurried away.

“Jen? Yes? Oh, what does Ken say?”

“Do you know the name of their hotel, Rosie?” Jen’s voice was brisk and purposeful.

“The Piccadilly-Regent. I don’t think Eleanor knows I know it, but I ransacked her bedroom and found an old envelope, torn in shreds but readable.”

“Good! Then all’s well; I was afraid we’d have to search London for her or catch her on the boat. What time is your lawyer due?”

“Eleven o’clock this morning.”

“We’ll be with you at ten-fifty. Ken’s making arrangements now; he has to put off an appointment. I’ve ’phoned that I won’t be able to go to the school sports; it doesn’t matter—I wasn’t giving the prizes this time, but I felt I ought to put in an appearance. Your business is more important; Miss Macey will admit that when she hears the story. You must be ready to start, with Roderic, as soon as Mr Braham knows all about it. Ken and I will talk to him while you and Audrey give us coffee and biscuits; he’ll be ready for it if he’s come from town.”

“Not from town,” Rosamund interrupted. “He lives at Guildford; it’s easy for him. Jen, you are the brickiest of bricks, and Ken’s another, to give up all your plans for the day! Do you mean that we’ll go after Eleanor and make her sign the papers yet?”

“My dear, yes. We’ll all surge in on her at the hotel. She’ll crumple up when she sees the solicitor, and Ken can overawe anybody when he likes. You’ll stalk up to her and hold out the baby, and say, ‘You’ve left one little thing behind you.’ She’ll sign anything you like.”

“Oh, I’ll do it! I’ll love to do it! Jen, I wish I could hug you over the wire! We’ll be ready.”

“Pack a bag for Roderic for the night. We’ll bring you back here—for the week-end, if you can stay.”

“How gorgeous! I’d love it above everything. But—Jen, I must stay at the Hall, you know. Will you mind? Joy would be hurt if I didn’t stay with her.”

Jen laughed. “You promised never to come to me unless she refused to have you, didn’t you? Yes, you’d better go to her; Maid and Biddy will love to have you, and Roderic ought to meet Madelon Marie. They must be just the same age, so you and Biddy can introduce them and compare notes. I’ll tell Joy you’ll be with them to-night. Ros, there’s one thing we want to know. Has the lawyer any authority over Eleanor, or the money, or the boy? Surely your father didn’t leave everything to her and make no provision for the child? Or for you?”

“None for me. I’m not blaming him for that; he had two to provide for. Half of it is Eleanor’s absolutely; the rest is in trust for Roderic; she has it till he’s of age. Mr Braham is their trustee.”

“Oh, cheers! That’s what we hoped. She’s so young, and your father was so much older, that I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t make some arrangement like that. Then Mr Braham can insist, and she daren’t defy him; she’ll realise that. He can’t force her to give Roderic to you, but he can insist that she makes proper arrangements for him before she goes away. So far she can’t say she’s done that.”

“She’s made none whatever. She’s deserted him; that’s what it comes to, Jen. She’s left him on our hands, knowing we had refused to keep him on those terms.”

“Yes. The lawyer will make her stay till she’s arranged for him properly.”

“She won’t stay. She’s set on travelling with these people.”

“Then she’ll sign anything you want, my dear,” and Jen rang off and hurried to her sun parlour to finish her breakfast.

Rosamund raced home and told the plans to the Squirrel girls, and to Rena and Lisabel, who were just setting out for their day’s work in the garden.

Audrey looked relieved. “It’s more than kind of Lady Marchwood to take on our worries in this way.”

“She does it for everybody. That’s what Eleanor hasn’t reckoned on,” Rosamund said grimly. “She thought I’d be helpless. I never told her I had the whole Marchwood clan, money and all, behind me.”

“It will make a great difference to Mr Braham.”

“Oh, all the difference,” Rosamund agreed. “He might not have thought me alone sufficient. Too much like—‘Baby alone and I!’ But when he sees Sir Kenneth and Lady Marchwood in the posh Buick, he’ll think better of it. And better of me, too.”

“They’re both so big,” Elspeth said pensively. “Eleanor will go all to bits if Sir Kenneth stands over her and says—‘Sign!’ I’d sign anything to please him.”

Rosamund laughed. “Poor Ken! He’s the gentlest of men; a perfect lamb, as Jen says. But he can be very firm; do you remember how he gave us our bath? Dear Ken! I think of him whenever I use it. He meant me to; he insisted on the bath.”

“I wondered where it came from,” Rena said. “Rosamund, will you stay for the week-end?”

“I’d like to; why? Are your young men coming down? If so, I shall be needed.”

“No; Lady Marchwood has asked us both to the Manor for the week-end. The letter came this morning, while you were talking to her. She’s sending the car for us on Saturday afternoon. We’d love to see her house and her kiddies, and to meet Betty again.”

“Oh, good! That will be fun! I’ll stay, then, and we’ll leave Audrey and Elspeth in possession of The Rose and Squirrel, as they were before they ever heard of me or knew Eleanor was married.”

“It was only The Squirrel House then, though,” Audrey retorted. “If people come wanting your craft stuff, they’ll have to come back later on.”

“I’ll risk that.” Rosamund had been making a hasty breakfast. “Good-bye, garden-maids! See you at the Manor on Sunday! I’ll show you over the Abbey ruins. Now, Audrey, I’ll wash and dress Roderic, and pack his little things and my own large ones; and then we’ll be ready for the adventure.”

“Elspeth and I will be thinking of you. I hope you’ll bring Eleanor to her senses.”

“Tell her what we think of her,” said Elspeth, beginning to clear the table.

By half-past ten the preparations were made, and Rosamund was at the gate, looking out for the big Marchwood car. A table in the courtyard was ready with cups and plates, and held a tray of sandwiches cut by Audrey, as well as cakes and biscuits.

At ten-forty-five the car swept round the corner, and Jen leant out, waving a greeting. Almost at the same moment a small car came racing down the London road, and the two drew up together at the Squirrel gate.

“The village will think we’re doing big business to-day!” Elspeth whispered, watching from behind the chintz curtain. “The lawyer’s early; they’re all here, Audrey!”

Audrey put on the pan. “Come and watch this milk, then. We won’t keep them waiting.”

Rosamund, with hot, excited cheeks and bright eyes, was introducing the solicitor to Jen. Mr Braham was elderly, keen-faced, with a quiet manner which carried weight. He looked puzzled by the appearance of an unknown family, when he had expected to meet Mrs and Miss Kane.

Kenneth Marchwood took the situation out of Rosamund’s hands as soon as the introductions were over.

“We’re pleased to meet you, Mr Braham. Your client has, unfortunately, run away. I hope you’ll see your way to sparing an hour or two to run after her.”

“Run away? But who has run away?”

“My beautiful stepmother,” Rosamund exploded. “She’s dumped the kid on me and bolted.”

The solicitor looked inquiringly at Kenneth. He laughed, and laid his hand on Rosamund’s shoulder and pushed her gently toward the house.

“Did you say coffee and biscuits, Rosamunda? We know you’re feeling sore, but I’d like you to leave it to us to explain. You know we’ll be fair to you.”

“Oh, I know. I will leave it to you. But I’m boiling, Mr Braham!” and Rosamund stalked into the house.

Then Kenneth talked for a few moments, forcibly and clearly, while Jen stood by and listened, with eager face, and now and then put in a word.

Audrey brought out the coffee, and Elspeth came to hand round.

“Have we frightened Miss Rosamund away?” Mr Braham looked very serious as he took his cup from her.

Elspeth smiled shyly. “Baby cried, so she ran upstairs to him. She’s giving him a feed before you start.”

“Is she very fond of him?”

“Oh, she loves him! And she’s so clever with him. He’s always good with her.”

“You think she’d make a good foster-mother, eh?”

“Heaps better than his real mother,” Elspeth said vehemently.

“But isn’t his mother your sister, my dear?”

“Yes, worse luck,” and Elspeth reddened.

“Elspeth!” said Audrey, biting her lips to keep back a laugh.

“I’m fed up with her.” Elspeth’s eyes met Jen’s shyly in appeal, as she offered her a sandwich.

“She goes to India to-morrow,” Jen whispered.

Elspeth laughed, comforted by this hint of fellow-feeling. “I’m glad. I hope she’ll stay there.”

“I’m sure she will. She won’t forgive Rosamund, or you, or any of us.”

“That’s all right,” Elspeth agreed. “That’s what we want.”

Kenneth and Mr Braham were talking earnestly over their coffee. Jen turned to listen, and Elspeth offered Audrey a biscuit and then disappeared into the cottage.

“Ros! Come and have some coffee before you start. I’ll watch Roderic for you.”

“Are we going?” Rosamund’s eyes were anxious. “Has Mr Braham said so? Perhaps he won’t approve.”

“Sir Kenneth’s talking to him. He always gets his own way. I’m sure it will be all right, Ros. Let me stay with baby!”

Rosamund’s eyes were wide with anxiety as she went out and sat down quietly beside Audrey and took her cup. Her hand shook, and Audrey gave her a quick look and saw that she was white.

“What’s the matter, dear?”

“Suppose he won’t help?” For once in her life Rosamund was really nervous. “I can’t do anything without him.”

Audrey glanced at the group and caught Jen’s eye. “When do you start, Lady Marchwood?” She went to offer biscuits and cakes, and added in an undertone, “Could you put Rosamund out of pain? She thinks Mr Braham is going to refuse. It would break her heart not to have the baby now.”

Jen spoke quickly to her husband. “It’s all right, isn’t it, Ken? Ros is going to pieces with nerves.”

“Ros go to pieces? Never!”

Rosamund forced a smile, though her lips quivered. “Silly! But you might tell me. Mr Braham, can I have my baby?”

“I think we must secure him for you,” the lawyer said gravely. “I would have liked to talk it over with the family, but there is no time. Mrs Kane has forced our hands. I feel he will be better in your care than in hers. Yes, Miss Rosamund, I’ll help you, and I have no doubt his mother will give way. We must explain the situation to Mr Kane afterwards.”

“Mr Kane?” Rosamund and Audrey, Kenneth and Jen, looked at him.

“The Honourable Geoffrey Kane; the only one in the family who is in a position to take an interest in the child. The Earl is very ill at Kentisbury Castle, and his heir is a schoolboy, as you know. The next heir is Mr Geoffrey, a younger son of the Earl; he is an invalid and crippled, but he is keenly interested in everything, and he will, I know, insist on being informed of all the circumstances of Master Roderic, who is the next heir after himself. I would have liked to consult him in this matter, but there is no time. We will proceed to tackle Mrs Kane and take the child out of her hands; that is the first step.”

“But this Mr Kane won’t want to interfere with me and Roderic, will he?” Rosamund asked anxiously. “Won’t it be all right if you assure him I’m taking good care of baby? I don’t want him taken from me by anybody. He’s going to be mine, if I adopt him, isn’t he?”

Mr Braham smiled. “My dear young lady, I can promise he shall be yours. Mr Geoffrey, as representing the family, may wish to see him and you, and may ask me to keep track of Master Roderic and to give an eye to his welfare. You need not fear more than that.”

“I don’t mind that!” Rosamund sighed in relief. “I’ll let the Honourable Geoffrey look at him. I was afraid he might want to do the Little Lord Fauntleroy stunt, and take Roderic away from me, to be brought up in a castle!”

Kenneth gave a shout of laughter. “We’ll stand by you, Rosie.”

Mr Braham patted her hand. “As long as Viscount Verriton is alive and well, and growing up, we hope, into healthy manhood, your brother is too far from the title to be of deep interest to the family, my dear. They will wish to see him and to know that he is being well brought up, which will be the case in your hands, I am sure. But they will not take him from you, unless any such calamity should befall us as an accident to the young Viscount—soon to be the Earl, I fear. Now shall we start for town?”

“I wish we hadn’t any earls and viscounts and honourables in the background!” Rosamund sighed. “I hope Viscount Verriton will have a dozen boys before he’s thirty!”

“If he does they’ll all be sickly. Better be content with three or four, Ros,” Jen laughed.

“You must see that he marries at eighteen.” Rosamund turned to the lawyer. “He’ll be the Earl by then, and heaps of girls will jump at the chance of being a countess.”

“Oh, one will do!” Jen murmured, as she went in to The Rose House for a word with Elspeth.

“Every son that boy has will be one more between Roderic and the title. I hope he’ll have a dozen,” Rosamund said again, as she went to fetch young Roderic.

“Let me hold him, Ros!” Jen pleaded, as the car set out, driven by Kenneth—Mr Braham’s two-seater being taken home by his chauffeur.

“We’ll take turns. Let me have him presently, Jenny-Wren!” and Rosamund surrendered her brother to Jen’s eager arms.

“Ros thinks you’ll kidnap him, Brownie,” said Kenneth over his shoulder.

Mr Braham, sitting in front beside him, asked a question; Rosamund’s intimacy with these friends had puzzled him.

“I know Miss Rosamund’s home during her girlhood was with Lady Marchwood. But I understood——” and he paused.

“That Lady Marchwood was a widow,” said Jen from behind. “That’s right. But I’m another one. She’s my sister-in-law, and we live next door. Rosamund is one of our family as well as of hers. We’re behind her in all this, Mr Braham.”

“It makes her adoption of little Roderic possible. Otherwise some different arrangement would be necessary, as she is still so young. She is fortunate in her friends.”

“I’m older than his mother,” Rosamund cried. “A month older in actual age, but years older in my mind. She hasn’t begun to grow up.”

Mr Braham smiled and did not argue the point.

It did not seem long till they were in the midst of the London traffic. Roderic, sleeping all the way, had been handed from one nurse to the other once or twice; Rosamund was not content unless he was in her arms, but Jen begged for him now and then, and insisted that Rosamund must rest.

“How are Audrey’s plans going, Ros?” she asked, to keep Rosamund’s thoughts busy.

“She won’t be married till September. Then Elspeth and I will manage, with extra help. We’re going to find a nice girl and train her as a waitress.”

“That will see you through the busy time. I’m glad she’s waiting till after the summer.”

“And the fruit season,” Rosamund added. “She says she feels she owes that to The Rose and Squirrel. Audrey’s very thorough, and a right-down good business woman.”

Jen laughed and agreed. “No one could say that of Elspeth. But you’re business-like; you’ll have to train her.”

“We’ll try. But Elspeth is a poet, or an artist. She’s very keen on our job, though.”

“That will help her. I’m expecting the garden damozels on Saturday night.”

“They want to come. They asked me to thank you.”

Then the car began to creep through the suburbs, and Rosamund became silent and anxious.

“Who shall I say is asking for Mrs Kane?” asked Kenneth, drawing up before the big hotel.

“Miss Kane,” said Mr Braham.

“Miss and Master Kane,” Rosamund suggested. “That would give her a really nasty jar.”

Kenneth laughed. “She might not come. If she thinks it’s only you, come to plead with her, she’ll come down to argue the matter out. She’ll have the shock of her life when she sees what you’ve brought, Rosamunda,” and he led the party into the lounge.

“Yes, Mrs Kane is with Mrs Denton in her rooms,” said the girl in the desk, and summoned the page to take the message.

“I think Mrs Kane will prefer to see us alone,” said Mr Braham to the boy.

“Oh, let’s barge in among her friends, and confront her with Roderic!” Jen murmured. “Most dramatic! ‘Madam—your child!’ Consternation all round!”

“I’d love it,” Rosamund said.

But the solicitor only smiled. “There’s no need to make it harder for little Mrs Kane.”

The girl in the desk was speculating about them, as they followed the page to a private drawing-room. The tall couple looked like a young husband and wife, and the other girl was obviously carrying their baby. She was not a nurse; she was well-dressed, and carried herself with an air which disposed of that idea. A sister of the baby’s mother, perhaps? They were both tall and fair. Who was the older man? The girl sighed and failed to solve the puzzle. Where did Mrs Kane come in? And was the unmarried girl with the baby Miss Kane? Who was the baby, then?

Eleanor, wide-eyed and frightened, ran down the broad staircase, looking very helpless and childish. Rosamund here? How had she found her? How had she come? There was no car at The Squirrel House. What did Rosamund mean to do?

She flung open the door of the little room, and then stopped with a cry, her remonstrance frozen on her lips, for the room seemed to be full of tall people.

Before she could recognise Jen, or pull herself together, Rosamund had stepped up to her, Roderic held out in front of her.

“You left your baby behind you.”

Mr Braham quietly closed the door.

Eleanor leaned against it, gasping. “Rosamund, you haven’t brought him here? Rosamund, are you crazy? You know I can’t have him here.”

“He’s going to India with you. You didn’t make any arrangements for him, did you?”

“You know I can’t take him! Rosamund, you’re hateful! You’re a brute!”

“I suggest that it is not too late to make arrangements for the child,” Mr Braham said suavely.

Eleanor whirled round, and turned white as she saw who had spoken. The solicitor was the one person she really feared.

“We have an appointment for this morning,” Mr Braham suggested, very gently. “I understood that you had made the appointment and were in agreement with its object.”

“I—forgot,” Eleanor muttered sulkily. Her look swept round the room for help. She recognised Jen, and her eyes fell.

The help she needed came in an unexpected way. Jen went forward to her, and spoke soothingly, as to a frightened child.

“My dear, you’ll do it, for your baby’s sake, won’t you? You want what is best for him.”

Eleanor’s sulky eyes softened. This offered her an easier way out than she had dared to hope for.

“You really think it would be best for him? I want what’s best for the kid, of course.”

“Oh—rot!” Rosamund muttered. But Jen’s eyes were on her, in expectation of some outburst, and she swallowed the words and bit her lip.

“I’m sure it’s best for Roderic. India wouldn’t suit him, and you’ve had no time to find a nurse, have you?”

“No, there hasn’t been time.” Eleanor grasped at the excuse eagerly. “I’d like him to stay with Rosamund. But I might want him back sometime, Lady Marchwood!”

“Oh, but that would be unkind to him! You couldn’t unsettle him by taking him away when he had grown used to Rosamund! You’d never be so unkind to him.”

Eleanor looked at her. “If I thought it was for baby’s sake——” she began.

“But it is for his sake, isn’t it? You’ll see him when you come back, of course, but you won’t take him away from Rosamund. It’s absolutely for his sake, because you feel an English life will be healthier for him, and you couldn’t bear to interfere with him later on. So you’ll let Rosamund adopt him, won’t you?”

Eleanor looked up at her. “Lady Marchwood, is it all right for me to do it? I do really want what’s best for him.”

“My dear, of course you do. I’m sure it’s right.”

“I might not be a good mother for him,” Eleanor quivered. “But can Rosamund—how can she do all that he’ll need? He might be somebody rather important some day; do you know about that?”

“I’ve heard about it, but it’s very unlikely to happen. It’s only the merest chance.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Only a chance,” Jen said again. “His little viscount cousin will probably grow up and start a new family, and Roderic will never be any nearer the title than he is now. Rosamund can do all that he needs.”

“It will cost a lot,” Eleanor hesitated.

“Not for some years; and his father left something for his education, I understand. Mr Braham will see to that, of course. Mrs Kane, don’t be anxious about the boy. My husband and I are prepared to stand by Rosamund. In any emergency she can call on us. We look on her as one of our family, you know.”

“For baby’s sake I’ll give him to Rosamund, then.” Eleanor spoke with sudden resolution. “What must I do? Are there things to sign?”

She could not quite keep the note of relief out of her voice. This meant freedom and India. It was galling to have to yield to Rosamund, but Lady Marchwood had put a new colour on the affair. Eleanor felt suddenly virtuous and self-sacrificing.

“It’s for Roderic’s sake entirely,” she said to the lawyer, as he spread papers on the table and showed her where to sign.

He made no comment, but handed her a pen.

Rosamund held Roderic to her breast and watched Eleanor over the bundle of shawls, her eyes smouldering with suppressed feeling. “I could shake you, Jenny-Wren!” she whispered.

Jen’s eyes danced. “But you’ve got the baby. You should hug me, I think!—I’ll hold him, Ros,” she said aloud. “You’ll have to sign too.”

Rosamund handed her the child, who was making little murmurs of protest that it was nearly lunch-time, and signed her name as Mr Braham directed.

“I congratulate every one concerned,” said he.

“I hope you’ll have a pleasant voyage, Mrs Kane, and a delightful holiday,” Jen said. “Take this boy, Rosamund. He’s yours!”

“Can’t we go? I’ll take him back to the car. He’s hungry,” Rosamund said restlessly.

She was looking white and tired. But she turned to Eleanor. “Do you want to kiss him? When you come back to England, I hope you’ll come and see how he’s getting on.”

She stooped and held the baby for Eleanor to kiss. “I’ll be very good to him. I hope you’ll have a jolly time.”

Kenneth held open the door for her, and Jen went with her to the car, making resolutions inspired by Rosamund’s strained, weary look.

“You do think it’s best for baby, don’t you?” and Eleanor faced the lawyer defiantly.

“I am sure you have decided wisely,” Mr Braham said gravely. “Miss Rosamund will do all that can be done for the boy. I shall keep an oversight of him, and these very good and wise friends will give her all the help she needs.”

“Oh, I couldn’t have consented, if it hadn’t been for Lady Marchwood! She made me see it was best for baby.”

“As well as for yourself, no doubt,” Mr Braham said blandly, unable to resist the temptation.

“I am sorry I permitted myself that little thrust,” he said, as Kenneth drove the car carefully down Piccadilly in search of a suitable restaurant for lunch. “I take off my hat to Lady Marchwood!”

“Jen made it too easy for the little lady,” said Kenneth.

“That’s a tribute to Mrs Kane!” Jen jeered. “All morning he’s been calling her ‘the little blighter’ or ‘the little beggar.’ Now that he’s seen her she’s ‘the little lady.’ Well, well! And all because she has a baby face and big pathetic eyes!”

Kenneth laughed. “All the same, you did let her down too gently, Brownie. ‘For the child’s sake’—‘for baby’s sake’! All she cares about is the future Earl of Kentisbury.”

“Why did you give her such a loophole, Jen?” Rosamund demanded. “You knew she wasn’t thinking of him.”

“She’s almost persuaded herself by now that she’s thinking only of him! How would it have helped to make it harder for her? She hated giving in to you; if we’d rubbed in that side of it, she might have put her back up and refused to sign the papers, and said she’d stay at home. Then you and Roderic would have been dished.”

“In the soup,” Kenneth added. “I thought the Lady Marchwood platform manner couldn’t last much longer.”

“Ken, you really are a pig!” his wife protested. “Rosie, it’s never any use forcing people into corners and then shoving things at them and saying—‘Sign that’! They only stiffen and say they’ll see you farther first. I gave your stepmother a chance to save her face, and she leapt at it.”

“She certainly did,” said Mr Braham. “It was a most kind and tactful proceeding, which eased matters greatly for every one concerned.”

“There, Kenneth Marchwood!” Jen cried in triumph. “Now aren’t you going to feed the warriors? We’re all hungry, and Rosamund’s fainting.”

“Here we are. Women and children first!” said Kenneth, and turned to Mr Braham. “If you’ll take them in I’ll park the car somewhere. The police will get excited if I dump her here. Lady Marchwood”—to Jen—“perhaps you’ll choose a large, quiet table in a corner, and order every eatable and drinkable they have in the place!”

“I’m quite equal to that. Ros, I’m going to hold the precious boy while you make a good lunch.”

“And what about your own lunch?”

“Oh, I’m used to eating with babies swarming all over me! I don’t know how I do it; hold them with my toes, I think. I can manage better than you can. He’ll wait for his food till we’re back in the car, won’t he?”

“It isn’t his time for an hour yet, and he’s gone off to sleep,” Rosamund said hopefully. “I think we’ll get through lunch before he yells the place down.”

As if satisfied that his future was now assured, Roderic did as she hoped, and slept peacefully on Jen’s lap. When they were once more in the car and had left Mr Braham at the door of his office, Rosamund took the bottle from its wrappings, in a basket under the seat, and between them she and Jen made the hero of the occasion as comfortable as if he had been in his cradle at home.

“I want one thing, Rosie. I absolutely demand it,” Jen said, as they left the town behind and took the road for Wycombe.

“Then you’ll get it,” said Rosamund. “Is it something so very drastic? I’d do a good deal to thank you to-day, Jenny-Wren.”

“Then do this, though you won’t like it. Give Roderic to me for a night or two, and you have a real rest with no disturbed nights.”

“Oh—Jen! But I want him!”

“You’ll have more than enough of him.” Jen was determined. “Nurse and I will love to have him. Rosemary is nine months old; we’ll love to have a two months’ babe to play with again. You know how reliable nurse is!”

“Oh, I know he’d be all right! But why, Jen?”

“Because, my dear, you’ve had a big strain on you to-day, and for some days you’ve been worrying. You’re tired, and you’re going to have several months of Roderic as an infant, with possibly broken nights. Take the chance of four nights without him, and park him with me, as you said you’d do.”

“I hate to give him up, even to you,” Rosamund said wistfully.

Jen laughed. “You shall have him for this afternoon, to show him off to Maidlin and Biddy. You shall compare notes about him and Biddy’s Madelon Marie. But at bedtime I shall come and claim him, and you’ll sleep without a baby anywhere near you. Now, Rosie, you know it’s wise. You’re fagged out.”

“It may be wise, but it’s not nice,” Rosamund groaned.

Jen laughed again, and bent over the baby as he fell back from his bottle and lay against her, sound asleep.

“Poor wee mite! I’ll love to have him. I’m always sorry for bottle babies, but in his case there was no choice. You’ll be a better mother than Eleanor would have been.”

“I know you mean it kindly, but it’s not saying much,” Rosamund said.

“This is very nice!” Rosamund sighed.

Tea on the terrace of Joy’s house was over, and she was lying back in a garden chair, while two babies kicked and made little gurgling noises of content in the sunshine, on a rug at her feet. One was young Roderic; the other was Madelon Marie, whose tiny black head was as smooth and round as the boy’s yellow one.

Biddy Verdier, Mary Devine’s young sister, sat on the rug watching the pair. She was Rosamund’s age, with bobbed brown curly hair and wistful eyes. Her French marriage had been unhappy, but she had hope of something very much better in the future.

“I like your daughter, Madame Verdier!” said Rosamund, poking Madelon Marie with her toe.

“I like your boy,” Biddy said. “You must be glad to feel his rotten mother can’t take him from you.”

“It’s heavenly to know those papers are in Mr Braham’s safe! And it’s so restful. I’ve been worried for days—weeks, almost.”

“I’m nearly as bad as Mrs Kane,” and Biddy’s face darkened. “If Maid hadn’t stood over me in Annecy, and said I must come home, I might have left Madelon Marie with Madame and Annette, and only gone to see her now and then.”

“You wouldn’t really have done that. But Maid was a brick. I don’t know how she did it.”

“She likes your Roderic nearly as much as my Madelon,” said Biddy.

“But not quite!” Rosamund laughed. “Madelon Marie is her godchild, her filleule; is that right?”

“That’s right. Maid is her marraine.”

“Oh, it’s nice to be here again, and to rest!” Rosamund sighed, her eyes on the lawn, where Joy and Jen and Mary Devine were fielding, more or less scientifically, while Maidlin bowled to the red-haired twins. They wore their garden suits, of jerseys and knickers, under green smocked pinafores; Maidlin, small and slight, had black hair rolled over her ears in big coils, and great black eyes that told of her Italian parentage.

“Out, Margaret!” cried Joy. “Out middle stump! Aunty Jen is next man in!”

Margaret clung to her very small bat. “Don’t want to be out. Aren’t goin’ to be out. Twin can be out. I likes battin’.”

“Margaret!” said Jen in a shocked voice. “Out is out, and you must play fair. Look at your middle stump!”

“Which is it?” Margaret regarded her fallen wicket severely, and dealt the stumps still standing a blow with her bat.

“Margaret, that’s shocking behaviour,” Joy scolded.

“What’s shockin’?” Margaret demanded.

“You is! You is, Twin!” Elizabeth cried. “You isn’t playin’ fair. Aunty Maid bowled you out, an’ you’ve got to be out. Are I out too, Muvver?”

“Twin be out too,” Margaret pleaded, nearly in tears. “Twin can’t be in, if I’se out, Muvver!”

“It is puzzling,” Joy admitted. “Twins do everything together, don’t they? But you’ll have to learn, or be a little baby, Margaret. Your wicket fell down because you weren’t looking, and so you didn’t run fast enough; so you’re out. But Elizabeth’s is still standing up straight, so she isn’t out. Oh, Margaret-Twin!”

Margaret had seen a simple way out of the difficulty. She dashed across to her sister’s place, and hurled the stumps in all directions. “Vere! Now Twin’s out too. Bof of us out!”

“We’ll have no more cricket to-day,” Joy exclaimed. “You aren’t old enough for cricket, Margaret. Little babies don’t play cricket.”

“Why are I a baby?” Margaret shouted. “I aren’t! Twin’s a baby; she didn’t get out. I made Twin be out!”

“Silly girl!” said Elizabeth. “Ve ball makes us be out, don’t it, Aunty Jen?”

“You’ve grasped the idea,” Jen said approvingly. “We’ll play some more another day, twinnies. It would look too funny to see Elizabeth and me making runs, wouldn’t it? Let’s go and look at Roderic and Madelon. Tiptoes, girlies!”

She carried Roderic away presently, when the twins went off to bed. “Nurse is longing to see him. Kiss him good-night, Rosie!”

“I know it’s best, but I shall miss him dreadfully,” Rosamund sighed.

Next morning, however, when she rang up the Manor to ask if Roderic had been good, she confessed that Jen had been wise.

“I had a lovely night—slept like a top. I feel as different as can be. I didn’t know how tired I was, Jenny-Wren.”

“I knew you didn’t. It’s a great pleasure to have Roderic here; you must come now and then for a long week-end, and let us take him off your hands. The boys are fascinated with him. I like being your parking-place for brothers, Rosie!”

It was a quietly happy week-end. Rena and Lisabel arrived on Saturday afternoon, and came to the Hall on Sunday to see the twins and Joy again, and to meet Mary Devine, Maidlin, Biddy, and Madelon Marie.

Rosamund showed them every corner of her old home, and took them over the Abbey ruins with great enjoyment.

Rena renewed her friendship with Betty McLean, and they had a long talk of their schooldays during tea on Sunday; it happened to be the day for the monthly Church Parade of the Guides, so at the evening service she saw Joy march into church at the head of the Rangers, while Betty led the Guides. She saw the Music School which Betty managed for Joy, and was shown Maidlin’s Camp Fire gown and pictures of her girls.

“What a thrilling week-end!” was Rena’s comment.

When the car carried them back to The Squirrel House on Monday morning, Rosamund admitted that she was refreshed and ready for anything, and that she really had been needing a rest.

Just a week later a letter came, forwarded by Mr Braham, over which Rosamund knit her brows, and sat and thought. She sprang up to go to the village, to talk with Jen on the ’phone; then she turned back.

“No, I won’t; I’ll tell her afterwards. I can’t rely on Jen all the time. I’ll see it through, and then tell her all about it.”

When, a few days later, a small fast car drew up at The Squirrel gate, she was waiting, with Roderic in her arms. The man settled them in and tucked the rug round them, and Rosamund was whirled away on a big adventure.

She had time to think as she drove, for the ride was a long one. Roderic needed little attention; he was, fortunately, still too young to be distressed by his frequent travels.

Rosamund, facing a new experience, would have given much to have a companion who could understand. “If only Jen could have come with us! She’d have done it, if I’d asked her. But it’s better not. The Honourable is nice; I know he’s nice. It was a kind letter. I’ll be glad to feel in touch with the family. But I do wish we were on the way home!”

Jen’s vision of the future was realised in part that day, when Rosamund, feeling very young and nervous, but looking extremely composed, with a touch of dignity, with flushed cheeks and brave eyes, carried her brother across the lawn at Verriton House and presented him to her cousin, Geoffrey Kane.

Mr Kane was a middle-aged man, with a thin, lined face and grey hair, sitting under the trees in an invalid chair. His eyes were kind and patient, and he smiled up at tall Rosamund.

“It is good of you to come so far, Cousin Rosamund. I thought it well that I should see this little man. Mr Braham has told me the story. He is Roderic, I hear?”

“Roderic Geoffrey,” said Rosamund. “My father’s name was Geoffrey.”

“Ah, then he kept the family tradition. We have Geoffreys in each generation. I am glad your brother has the name. You also keep the tradition.”

“How do you mean? By being fair? Are we a fair family?”

“We are,” he smiled. “But I meant your name. Our girls are all roses—Rosemarys and Rosalinds and Rosalies and Rhodas. Your father remembered when he chose your name.”

“Oh, that’s jolly! No one ever told me,” Rosamund cried. “I’m glad I keep the tradition.”

“You are like your father, I imagine,” said her cousin. “You are like the rest of us: tall and fair and—good-looking, shall I say? I rejoice to meet you, my dear, and I am more than glad that the boy should be in your care.”

“I hope he’ll never come into the title,” Rosamund ventured.

“It is very unlikely that he will. Verriton is a healthy, vigorous lad, and should marry young and found a new family.”

“I hope he will,” Rosamund agreed. “If you can do anything to make him get married quite soon, you will, won’t you?”

Geoffrey Kane laughed. “They are bringing your tea out here. I am out a great deal. Will the boy be warm enough, or should he go indoors?”

“He almost lives out of doors. We’ve a very sheltered little garden, and I carry his cradle out every morning that’s fine. He loves being out.”

Rosamund unwrapped Roderic’s shawl and laid him on a rug on the grass, where he kicked and sprawled to his heart’s content. The man-servant who brought the tea was about to pour it, when Mr Kane dismissed him.

“Miss Kane will do that. Will you, my dear?”

“I’d love to. It will be much nicer,” and Rosamund took her place at the table. “I keep a shop, and help in a tea-house. I hope you don’t mind?”

He laughed. “Perhaps you will tell me about it, and all your plans for the boy.”

“Couldn’t you—do you go out driving?” Rosamund hesitated. “Couldn’t you run down into Sussex one morning, and see where Roderic lives? We’d give you morning coffee!”

“I should like to do that, and to see this tea-house of which I have been told. I drive a great deal; it is almost all I can do. What do you call your shop, my dear?”

“The Rose and Squirrel! The Rose is my part; I sell all sorts of lovely things—craft work, you know—handwoven goods, and pottery, and paintings, and woodwork. I could tell you really interesting stories of the people whose work I sell. The Squirrel is the tea-house, kept by the sisters of Roderic’s mother. Mr Kane, do you think it was horrid of me to take him away from his mother? I had to fight her, you know.”

“From what I have heard, I am very glad you won the fight. But I should like to hear more.”

It was the most interesting afternoon the invalid had spent for months. Rosamund waited on him, bringing scones and cakes to his side, and laughingly declared it made her feel quite at home. She answered his questions and told him stories, and when she carried Roderic indoors to give him his food and a little attention, the sick man’s eyes followed her tall figure wistfully, and he sighed and wished she need not go.

“Perhaps some day soon you will bring Roderic and spend a few days with me here,” he suggested, when she returned with a contented sleeping baby, and sat nursing him till it was time to go.

Rosamund’s eyes brightened. “That would be rather fun! The house is lovely, and I don’t know this part of the country at all.”

“The house is small compared with Kentisbury. But my father is lying ill at the Castle. Did Yorke point it out to you as you crossed the bridge?”

“He didn’t need to point it out. It filled the landscape; it quite took my breath away.” Rosamund looked down at her sleeping brother. “Poor little scrap! Mr Kane, you must marry Lord Verriton to some nice girl! Think, if this mite had to live in that enormous castle!”

Geoffrey Kane smiled. “He would have you to take care of him. Then will you come?”

Rosamund looked serious. “It will have to be soon—as soon as the Easter rush at the Squirrel is over and before the summer season begins. We have a lot of fruit, and I take charge of that and make jam and jelly. It’s a very busy time. Now that I have Roderic to provide for, I mustn’t slack or lose any chances.”

Geoffrey Kane laughed. “A good business woman, I see! When Roderic’s education becomes expensive you must let me help. He must have the best, in view of his possible future. If the family is perhaps going to ask him to take on its responsibilities it must help to prepare him for the position.”

“There’s something in that,” Rosamund admitted. “I was going to borrow from the Marchwoods, but if Roderic’s family offer to educate him, I don’t see how I can refuse to let them.”

“You can’t,” her cousin said. “I shall insist on helping. You are doing your part now.”

“I did my part when I bagged him and kept him from going to India or being left with a nurse,” Rosamund said, and rose to say farewell as the car came from the garage.

“All the same, Roddy boy, I hope you’ll never be an earl!” she whispered, looking up at the towers and battlements of Kentisbury Castle, where the old Earl lay ill, perhaps dying. “If Lord Verriton marries in a few years and has two or three boys, they’ll lose interest in you, and then it will be ‘Baby alone and I’ again. Only you won’t be baby then. Now won’t this be a story to tell to Jen and Joy?”

The story was told next day when, in answer to an urgent summons, the cars from the Manor and the Hall brought a big party to tea at The Squirrel House. When Elizabeth and Margaret, Andy and Tony, were provided for in their corner, under a green umbrella, Joy and Jen and Maidlin sat under a yellow one, and Rosamund poured out the tale of her visit to Verriton.

“Rosamunda, you went all alone, and without even telling us? How’s that for pluck!” Jen cried.

“I’d have loved to have you all with me. But I felt it wouldn’t be proper. I wanted him to feel I was fit to bring up a boy.”

“Without relying on anybody,” Jen agreed. “You were right. It wouldn’t have been quite dignified.”

“I nearly wired to Joy, to ask for the loan of a black dress. I thought that really would look dignified! But I decided to be myself, with no pretence of any kind.”

“Right again! Your instincts are sound, Miss Kane!” said Jen.

“What did you wear?” Joy asked.

“My old blue handwoven frock, with the orange and gold patterns. It’s the prettiest and most artistic thing I have, and it’s showing no sign of wear. Cousin Geoffrey didn’t know how many years I’d had it. He liked it; he asked if it was handweaving and if I’d done it myself. Of course I needed my big coat in the car. He’s coming here some day. I’m to ask you two to meet him; he wants to know you.”

“I’ll be pleased to meet the Honourable Geoffrey,” said Jen.

Maidlin had been listening. Now she said, “Joy and Jen once called me ‘the novelette girl,’ because of my Italian fortune. But Rosamund and Roderic seem to me more than a novelette. They’re a fairy-tale.”

“Madalena, you speak the truth,” said Jen. “Rosamund’s a fairy-tale heroine of romance. We shall see her reigning over that castle yet.”

“I hope not!” Rosamund interrupted.

“Castle or not, we’re very proud of you, Rose,” said Joy.

“It’s all your doing. I’m saying it all the time. Yours, and Jenny-Wren’s, and the Abbey’s. Now I’ll tell Elspeth we’re ready for a real Squirrel tea.”

“In which I hope the future earl will join us,” said Jen, with a laughing look at young Roderic in his cradle.

[End of Rosamund’s Victory, by Elsie J. Oxenham]