Front matter (continued 2)

"Poor!" echoed Jane-Anne scornfully, "and live in that beautiful house and have Aunt Martha for a servant. Oh, no, you can't be poor—not really."

"You see, there's Guardie, he takes care of us," Montagu explained, "but we're really orphans, too, you know."

"Are you? I'm so sorry," and she looked it.

"Oh, you needn't be a bit sorry for us. We're very jolly, thank you," and Edmund spoke in rather an offended tone. Pity was the last thing he expected or desired.

"I beg your pardon," she said quickly. "I know it's quite different for you; you're gentry, you see."

The boys glanced at one another and were horribly uncomfortable. In some queer, subconscious way they felt that they had unaccountably and unintentionally been "snobby" to Jane-Anne.

"Come on," said Edmund, "we're wasting time."

The game was keen and exciting. Jane-Anne flew about on her slender stockinged feet, and in spite of the stiff brown dress, there was something singularly fleet and graceful in her movements.

The pleasant pinky light had already changed to grey when from the house there came the sound of a hand-bell rung vigorously.

"Mercy!" exclaimed Edmund, "that's for us to wash. Mrs. Dew must be home and it's nearly supper-time."

Montagu was already half-way to the house when Jane-Anne caught Edmund by the arm, exclaiming, "Oh, let me get my boots. Don't go without me, and don't say I took them off. I don't know what Aunt'd say. I'm sure she'll think it forward of me to play with you."

"Rubbish," said Edmund. "Hurry up. We asked you, and I hope you'll come often. You'd learn to chuck up a ball in time, and your running's simply ripping."

"Can the princess one throw balls?" Jane-Anne asked as she laced a boot at lightning speed.

"I don't know. I shouldn't think so; she's a very little kid, you know."

"I should like to see her; is she like a princess, really?"

"Well, she is rather. She has a demandly sort of way as if she expected everybody to do as she likes. You could see her if you came to-morrow morning. They're coming then, I know."

"I'd love to, but what would aunt say? I'm certain she wouldn't let me; not in the morning when she's so busy."

"You come to the front door and I'll let you in myself and take you up to the attic. She's certain to want to go back there. She doesn't seem to care for gardens."

"Oh, I do," cried Jane-Anne; "gardens are lovelly; but I'll come," she added excitedly. "I'll wait across the road, then you can see me from the window and let me in. Mind you don't forget."

They ran back to the house and Edmund escorted Jane-Anne as far as the kitchen, where Mrs. Dew was standing at the fireplace dishing up.

"Jane-Anne came to see you, Mrs. Dew," Edmund announced loudly from the doorway, "but you'd just gone, so we asked her in to wait till you came back."

Mrs. Dew turned hastily and beheld her niece standing just behind her.

"But I've been back over an hour," Mrs. Dew exclaimed. "Wherever have you been since, Jane-Anne?"

"We asked her to play cricket with us," Edmund explained. "We never heard you come in. Good-bye, Jane-Anne, I must go and wash."

Wagging his curly head meaningly in token of the assignation for the morrow, Edmund departed and Jane-Anne was left face to face with her aunt.

"Well!" that good woman ejaculated. "You've given me a pretty turn. I couldn't think where you was gone; evening and all, and then to think you've been all this time playing with the young gentlemen like one of theirselves, and me never so much as dreaming where you was. What possessed you to come at all, Jane-Anne?"

"I was lonely, Aunt Martha, I wanted to see you."

"You might have seen me over an hour ago if you'd a' chose. Well, now you must run back home before it gets dark. I can't let you wait for me to take you, there's all them dinner things to wash up. How hot you are child! Mind you don't catch cold, and school beginning next week."

Jane-Anne looked wistfully at the sizzling cutlets in the frying-pan. She had started off before her tea and was very hungry. Her aunt had turned again to the range and was absorbed in lifting her cutlets out one by one and setting them to drain on a dish covered with white paper. As she carefully placed the last one, she turned and saw the flushed, wistful little face under the shadow of the inverted pie-dish.

"There, child," she said impatiently, "don't dawdle, it's late enough as it is, and Miss Morecraft 'll be in a fine taking where you can have got to."

"Good-night, Aunt Martha," Jane-Anne said obediently, and held up her face to be kissed.

Mrs. Dew stooped and kissed the child with great kindness and felt in the pocket of her skirt. "You buy a cake for your supper," she said, pressing a penny into Jane-Anne's hand, "on your way back. I can't give you anything here for the food's not mine, and to take my employer's victuals is what I never have done nor never will."

Jane-Anne flung her arms round her aunt's neck. "I do love you, Aunt Martha," she whispered chokily.

"There, there, do get home, and remember that if so be as I'm out when you call, you're to go away again and not come in as bold as brass as if you was a friend of the family—playing with the young gentlemen and all. Folks ought to keep to their proper stations."

"But he asked me to come and play," Jane-Anne expostulated.

"Law bless you, Master Edmund'd ask in a tramp off the road, he's that full of caddle. Now look sharp, child, and get home."

Jane-Anne let herself out at the side-door and went through under the archway into the street. It was quite deserted, and as she passed the dining-room window she stopped, and pressing her face against the glass, looked in.

The electric light above the table had a rose-coloured shade and filled the room with a warm, soft light. A bright fire was burning on the hearth, for the evenings were still cold and a shrewd wind blew down the empty street. To Jane-Anne, shivering now after being much too hot, the room looked inexpressibly comfortable and cheery.

Mr. Wycherly, his white hair shining with a silvery radiance, was standing with Montagu, newly promoted to a dinner-jacket on the hearth-rug. His hand was on the boy's shoulder, and he smiled down at him, for Montagu was talking eagerly. There was evidently such perfect confidence and affection between what Jane-Anne called "the beautiful old gentleman" and the boy for whom she had just been fielding, that she felt a passionate desire to be there too. Surely anyone who looked so gracious and benign would have a kindly word for her. Should she rap at the window and attract their attention? Somehow she was certain that neither of them would be cross. Her eyes filled with tears, and the figures standing on the hearth-rug became blurred and indistinct, but she saw her aunt come in and cross towards the window to pull down the blind. Jane-Anne darted away, the big tears chasing each other down her cheeks.

"I wish I was that kind of orphan!" sobbed Jane-Anne.

CHAPTER V

THEIR MEETING

"For may not a person be only five,

And yet have the neatest of taste alive?

As a matter of fact, this one has views

Of the strictest sort as to frocks and shoes."

AUSTIN DOBSON.

Little Herrick had no companions of her own age except for an occasional visit to cousins. Therefore did she invent comrades for herself and sternly impose them upon her family.

There was "Umpy dear" who, as his name suggested, was a meek, inefficient sort of person, often in trouble of various kinds, but always entirely amiable and desirous of pleasing. Quite other was "Mr. Woolykneeze," a stern, characterful personality who was quoted as an authority on all questions of manners and deportment. Even Janet, the commonsensical, trembled before Mr. Woolykneeze. One day at tea, having toothache, she had ventured to leave a piece of crust upon her plate, when Herrick remarked it and said sternly, "Mr. Woolykneeze thinks it's very impolite to leave bits, 'specially crusts," and poor Janet was fain to soak the crust in her tea and mumble it that way rather than offend this mysterious and invisible censor.

When asked the age of "Umpy dear," Herrick always persisted that he was "three months and one day." He never grew any older and his social solecisms were surely excusable in one of such tender age. "Mrs. Miff" was "Umpy dear's" mother, and her character was believed to have been founded on that of a charwoman who occasionally came to the house. Like her offspring she was meek and rather feckless, frequently arousing the wrath of Mr. Woolykneeze by her untidy and careless habits.

No one knew whence Herrick got the names or how she divined their various characters, but the people were there and had come to stay, and her family had to put up with them.

Her visit to Oxford opened up whole vistas of new possibilities. Here were two real boys with whom she had been allowed to play. It is true that they did not fall into her scheme with that instant understanding and obedience to which she was accustomed from her parents, but still they played after a fashion, a new and piquant fashion, and Herrick went back to the King's Arms after her visit to Holywell chattering incessantly of "Monkagu" and "Emmund," and demanding an instant return to their society. She wept bitterly when she found she could not go back that night, and declared that Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear were equally upset. Her father suggested that these gentlemen might stroll round by themselves, when Herrick, regarding him with tearful astonishment, sobbed out: "They'd never be so unkind as to go wivout me. Besides, Umpy dear might spill something on your uncle's best carpet. Can't I take them?"

"Not to-night, I fear."

"Why?"

"Because, you see, we've been already; it would be troublesome to go twice."

"Why would it be troublesome? I want to play with those little boys again."

"They're not very little boys, you know. They're a great deal bigger than you are. Perhaps they don't care to play with little girls."

At this Herrick opened her tearful eyes wide, repeating in astonishment, "Not care to play wiv me? Why not?"

"Well, you see, boys don't always care for the same games that girls like."

"But they're nice boys."

"I'm glad to hear it; still, you know, even nice boys don't always care to play with little girls."

Herrick sighed deeply. It was a horrid suggestion, the more so that she felt secretly assured that the princess game had not been a wild success.

"I want to see the varlet again," she persisted.

"Which is the varlet?"

"The littler one. I do want him to play wiv me."

"Perhaps he will to-morrow."

"D'rectly after breakfas', mind; you promise."

William Wycherly promised, and Herrick went to bed to dream that "Emmund" and "Monkagu" were walking down Holywell arm-in-arm with Umpy dear and Mr. Woolykneeze, and that they all four called at the hotel to take her for a walk in St. John's Gardens.

Next morning Herrick woke very early. Janet, her Scottish nurse, was having a fortnight's holiday, therefore at that time her mother was her sole guardian and attendant. Her bed was in a little dressing-room off that of her mother, the door between the two rooms being left open.

For a little while Herrick was content to sit up and wonder at the floors of the King's Arms Hotel, which are not as ordinary floors, but slope up and down in all sorts of unexpected directions. But she soon got tired of this, and so effectually roused her devoted parents that the three of them were down in the coffee-room and had finished breakfast by half-past eight.

"Now let us go and see your uncle, daddie dear," Herrick suggested as soon as she was lifted down from her chair. It seemed so extraordinary to her that anyone as old as her father should have an uncle, and she never failed to lay great stress upon the pronoun.

"We can't possibly invade them so early as this," Margaret said firmly; "they're probably not downstairs yet."

"Umpy dear thinks they're up and finished breakfast," Herrick remarked in a detached, impersonal tone, "and waiting for me."

"Well, I must beg to differ from Umpy dear. We said we'd call about ten, and it won't be ten for an hour and a half yet. I must write some letters, and you must amuse yourself somehow while I do it. What toys will you have?"

"I'll look out of the window, sank you," Herrick remarked with dignity, and climbed upon a chair that she might see over the wire blind.

Her mother gave one amused glance at the small offended back turned towards her and went upstairs to get her writing-case.

William Wycherly, seeing his daughter apparently engrossed in her inspection of the street, strolled to the bureau to look up trains, for they were to leave that afternoon.

No sooner was he out of sight than Herrick, muttering something to the effect that "Mr. Woolykneeze knows they're waiting," scrambled down from the chair and tip-toed out to the hall and thence into the street.

No one saw her, for none of the other sojourners at the King's Arms were down, and at that moment there was not even a waiter in the hall.

It was a perfect April morning. The sun shone clear and warm, and a shy, caressing wind lifted Herrick's curls and turned them to a haze of golden floss as she stepped daintily to the pavement and looked up street and down street carefully. Then, as fast as her sturdy legs would carry her, she ran till she reached Mr. Wycherly's gabled house.

But there she was met by a difficulty, for she could reach neither knocker nor bell. For a moment she stood undecided in the doorway, but she was not lacking in resource. She couldn't quite see into the windows but she could reach them with her hand. She selected that on the left-hand side of the door and tapped on the glass. No response; evidently there was no one in that room.

She tried the other. Still no one came to see who was there.

A passing boy, who noted her efforts, inquired good-naturedly: "Want to get in, missie?"

"Please! Would you ring for me?" she asked, smiling up at him in bewitching fashion; "there doesn't seem to be anybody in those rooms."

The boy rang loudly, knocked like a postman, and went up the street, where he waited a few doors off to see what happened.

The door was opened.

Mrs. Dew looked down at this hatless, golden-haired person in an elaborate blue linen smock the colour of her eyes, and recognised yesterday's visitor.

"Come in, my dear," she said hospitably. "They're none of 'em down yet, but I can hear the young gentlemen hollerin' and rampagin', so they won't be long——" "Parents want to get her out of the way for a bit, I expect," she thought to herself, "her mamma must get pretty tired of it without no nurse."

Herrick followed Mrs. Dew into the dining-room, where breakfast was laid. "One minute, my dear," said that good woman, "I must just pop back to my bacon and eggs, then I'll come and see to you."

But Herrick had not come to see Mrs. Dew. No sooner was she left alone than she sought the steep, narrow staircase and began to climb upstairs, whispering as she went, "You'd better take my hand, Umpy dear."

Two doors on the landing were open. The bathroom faced her, empty, and very wet. She walked straight through the second open door on the other side of the landing and came upon Montagu brushing his hair at the glass while Edmund, still in his shirt-sleeves, was practising a handspring on the end of his bed.

Montagu saw her reflected in the mirror and in speechless astonishment watched her as she paused well inside the doorway, announcing genially, "We've all three come."

Edmund's feet dropped to the floor with a flump.

"Mercy goodness!" Montagu ejaculated, and dashed for the door that led into Mr. Wycherly's room. On this he thumped loudly; without waiting for permission to enter, he opened it just wide enough to thrust in his head, and repeated, "They've all three come," in a penetrating whisper.

Mr. Wycherly, who was shaving, dropped his razor and turned a soapy and astonished countenance towards Montagu, exclaiming, "What! al——!" when he hastily changed his remark to: "They've come to breakfast with us, have they? How exceedingly kind and friendly; run down at once and ask Mrs. Dew to lay three more places."

Herrick staring at Edmund, heard this and said slowly: "They don't generally lay for them."

"What?" cried Edmund, immensely interested. "Don't you have plates and knives and things?"

"I do," said Herrick; "at least not knives 'cept a silver one, but they never do. They will be pleased."

"But do you mean to tell me," Edmund exclaimed, appalled at the eccentricity of the Wycherly ménage as revealed by their daughter, "that they eat things right off the cloth? Whatever do they do when there's gravy?"

"They never has gravy, poor dears," said Herrick sadly.

Edmund sighed. As old Elsa would have said, it was "ayont him"; and they both looked so nice too. It was impossible to imagine Mr. and Mrs. Wycherly gnawing cutlets without so much as a plate between them. He got into his waistcoat and jacket in thoughtful silence. Montagu, who had not paid any attention to these astonishing revelations, being filled with hospitable concern as to whether there would be sufficient bacon and eggs for three extra persons, gave his hair one final thump with the brush and prepared to go downstairs.

"Stop!" cried Edmund; "you haven't said your prayers; hurry up!" Both boys knelt down by the bed, side by side, while Herrick watched their bowed heads with solemn interest.

"Why don't you begin?" she asked impatiently after a minute's silence.

"I've done," Edmund announced cheerfully, arising from his knees, when Montagu followed suit and rushed downstairs.

"But you didn't say anything."

"We don't say prayers out loud. It's only very little children say them out loud."

"Oh!" she said, as though suddenly enlightened. "Umpy dear says his very loud, but Mr. Woolykneeze looks into his hat like a grown-up genpleman; you can't hear a fing."

"But," Edmund objected, "one hasn't always got a hat in the morning," and opening Mr. Wycherly's door a very little, he called through: "I say, Guardie, do you always say your prayers into a hat?"

"Really, Edmund," said poor Mr. Wycherly, much perturbed by this second interruption, "I do so dislike doors being opened while I am shaving, especially when as in this instance——"

Edmund banged the door.

"I'm sure he doesn't," he said confidently. "He can't, for his hat's downstairs. P'raps that Mr. What's-is-name you mentioned has a special kind."

"Mr. Woolykneeze has hundreds of hats," Herrick announced magnificently.

"What a lot of room they must take up," said Edmund, much impressed.

"They do," said Herrick, "rooms and rooms."

"Is yon Mr. Woolykneeze a relation?" Edmund asked.

Herrick looked thoughtful. "Not exactly," she said slowly, "but he's a dear fend."

"How many pairs of trousers has he?"

Here was a poser. Herrick was not yet very familiar with the science of numbers. "I've not seen them all," she said cautiously; "he wears different ones every day. Let's come downstairs," she added quickly lest he should ask more inconvenient questions. "You may show me the garden till bretfus is ready if you like."

By the time Mr. Wycherly came down, six places were laid for breakfast and Mrs. Dew had cooked three extra portions of bacon and eggs. She rang the bell loudly and the boys with little Herrick came in from the garden.

"Perhaps you'd better run along to the King's Arms, Edmund, and tell my nephew and his wife that breakfast is ready," said Mr. Wycherly. "I thought, my dear," he added, turning towards Herrick, "that you said your father and mother had come. I hope they haven't gone away in despair because none of us were down."

Herrick looked up at him with candid, forget-me-not blue eyes.

"No," she said gravely, "I never said they'd come for they didn't."

"But you did!" Montagu exclaimed. "You said, 'We've all three come' when you first came upstairs."

"So we have," she said. "Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear and me; not mummy and daddie. I 'spect this is him now," as a loud knock and ring came at the front door.

And sure enough it was William Wycherly, so relieved to see his daughter safe that he forgot altogether to scold her for running away.

Margaret, thinking her husband was in charge of Herrick, had not hurried down and he, returning to the empty coffee-room, concluded that Herrick had been fetched upstairs by her mother. It was not till Margaret came down that they discovered she had apparently vanished into space. William instantly fell into a panic and was for summoning a detective at once, when Margaret calmly interposed with the suggestion that he should first look for his daughter in his uncle's house. After considerable explanation which included the important personalities of Mr. Woolykneeze and Umpy dear, William was fain to go back to the King's Arms without his daughter, and Herrick sat at Mr. Wycherly's right hand, raised high in her chair upon a dictionary and Cruden's Concordance, and had breakfast all over again "wivout a bib" as she joyfully announced. The blue smock also bore testimony to that fact when the meal was over. The extra bacon and eggs were not wasted; Montagu and Edmund consumed the lot.

By the time breakfast was over it was nearly ten o'clock, and Edmund went to the front door to look for Jane-Anne. Sure enough she was there waiting in a doorway just down the street. Jane-Anne saw him and came out from her doorway, advancing rather timidly.

"Where's Aunt Martha?" she whispered.

"Upstairs, making beds," Edmund answered, "so we can't go to the attics, but you can come into the garden. There's only one room looks out into the garden and that's Guardie's study. He's gone there now so Mrs. Dew won't be in that."

"Are you sure?" Jane-Anne whispered again. "She'd be awfully vexed if she saw me."

"Come on. That kid is here and she can't stop long for we're all going out on the river. Hurry up if you really want to see her."

Jane-Anne came in sideways, as though by that means she made herself less conspicuous.

Herrick and Montagu were standing on the lawn under an apple tree, looking at some trumpet daffodils that were growing at its root. Herrick, very gently, was lifting each yellow bell to look inside it.

"Fairies live in these," she was saying, "but it's such a beautiful morning, I 'spect they've all flown away. You have to be very early to catch a fairy. Who's that with Edmund and what's she come for?"

"To see you, I think," Montagu replied. "Jane-Anne's her name and she's Mrs. Dew's niece."

Jane-Anne looked more haggard than ever this morning; pale to ghastliness with dark shadows under her great eyes, she was singularly unattractive. Little Herrick felt both puzzled and repelled, but Margaret's teaching held good and the child walked forward holding out her hand with a little gracious air that was very captivating.

"How do you do?" said Herrick.

To her surprise, this strange-looking person dropped on one knee before her and taking the eggy little hand in both her own, kissed it.

"You're quite right," Jane-Anne remarked to Montagu over her shoulder, "she is like a princess."

"You may kiss me if you like," said Herrick graciously.

"If you please, miss, I'd rather you'd kiss me if you will," said Jane-Anne humbly. "I'd like to think anything so pretty as you had kissed me."

There was something so wistful and pathetic in the pale face that gazed so longingly into her own that little Herrick's warm heart was touched and she flung her arms round Jane-Anne's neck and kissed her heartily.

"Thank you," said Jane-Anne as she rose up to her feet. "I shall never forget it, never."

"Now I," interposed Edmund, who had looked on with astounded disapprobation at this display of sentiment, "I should loathe and abominate anyone who kissed me and I should try to forget it as soon as ever I could."

"So should I," Montagu agreed, "rather—but I suppose girls are different."

"Course they are," Herrick chimed in; "quite different and much better and more precious. Daddie says so."

This point of view did not appeal to the boys.

"I don't know about 'precious,'" Edmund said scornfully. "It depends what you mean by precious."

"I'm precious," Herrick explained, "very, very precious. That's why they were so afraid they'd lost me this morning, 'cause I'm so precious."

"I'm not," said Jane-Anne. "Female orphans never are so far as I can make out, but I'd like to be. Oh, it would be lovelly!"

Herrick had been staring hard at Jane-Anne for some minutes and at last could contain herself no longer.

"Why," she demanded, "do you wear such a funny hat? Do you like it?"

"Why d'you wear no hat at all?" Montagu interposed, vaguely aware that Herrick's question was not tactful.

"I wear a bonnet generally," Herrick remarked with dignity, "but I came out without it this morning 'cause they were in such a hurry. D'you like my smock?" she asked, turning to Jane-Anne. "Mummy made it."

"I like everything about you," Jane-Anne answered, with commendable enthusiasm. "I think you're a dear darling, and I hate all my clothes, but I can't go about without any because people would stare, beside it's generally too cold." And though the sun was shining hot on the lawn, Jane-Anne shivered.

Montagu looked at his watch.

"We'll have to go and get ready," he said. "We're all going on the river this morning—they're going away this afternoon—and I promised to take her back to the hotel at half-past ten to have her face washed. I wish you were coming too," he added kindly, "but it's not our party."

"Good-bye, little girl," said Herrick, "and I hope you'll soon have a nicer hat, a really pretty one." And again Herrick kissed Jane-Anne.

"I'll let you out at the garden door," said Edmund, "then we shan't run into Mrs. Dew."

Quite silently Jane-Anne followed him to the end of the garden where there was a door in the wall. It was seldom used and the key was stiff, but by great efforts with both hands, Edmund managed to turn it.

"Come again, soon," he said hospitably, "and we'll have some more cricket."

Jane-Anne murmured something unintelligible and passed out with bent head, the pie-dish effectually concealing her face. Edmund locked the door behind her and ran back to the house.

Outside the garden, in Saville Road, it was very quiet. It is true there was a distant rumble of carts from Holywell and a thrush was singing in one of Mr. Wycherly's apple-trees, but of human kind there wasn't a sign.

Jane-Anne went down on her knees, her shoulder pressed close against the garden door.

"Dear God," she prayed, "I do so want to be precious too. Please let me be precious to somebody. Please do."

CHAPTER VI

MR. WYCHERLY ADDS TO HIS RESPONSIBILITIES

"Some cheeses are made o' skim milk and some o' new milk, and it's no matter what you call 'em, you may tell which is which by the look and the smell." Adam Bede.

Next day Mrs. Methuen took the boys out on the river for the whole afternoon. She invited Mr. Wycherly to go too, but the previous day had been his first experience of his wards as oarsmen, and he came to the conclusion that he preferred their society on land.

He was sitting at his writing-table in his study. The great oriel window was open and he could see that there were already patches of pink on the largest apple-tree, while the pear-trees had shed their snowy blossoms and shone brilliantly green against the blue and cloudless sky.

It was a pleasant prospect from the study window: the long irregular strip of garden, with smoothly shaven lawn in the centre and winding paths among borders where vegetables, fruit and flowers grew side by side in perfect amity.

The afternoon was singularly quiet, and, knowing Mr. Wycherly's habits, one would have felt that here was an excellent opportunity for his great work on the Nikomachean ethics which had been sadly neglected during the last strenuous weeks. Yet he neither took up the pen nor did he open any of the fat, calf-bound books piled one upon another at his elbow.

He sat very still, his long white hands resting idly on the arms of his chair, his kind eyes dreamy, his whole attitude eloquent of contented tranquillity.

Presently there came a modest tap at the study door, followed by the entrance of Mrs. Dew with her small round tray, and on it a rather dirty piece of paper which she presented to Mr. Wycherly with the announcement: "A young person to see you, sir."

Mr. Wycherly, roused from his agreeable reverie, looked bewildered.

"A young person?" he repeated vaguely, "to see me. What sort of a young person, Mrs. Dew?"

Mrs. Dew's face preserved the non-committal expression of one who has seen service in really good families, as she replied: "A young woman, sir, from the Registry Office, I should suppose."

Mr. Wycherly took the piece of paper off the tray and read as follows:

"M. Fairfield exp.: general character six months twelve months plain cooking age 23 very respectable."

There were no stops.

He looked beseechingly at Mrs. Dew, but her eyes were bent upon the carpet and she waited his pleasure a perfect monument of respectful detachment. Poor Mr. Wycherly had forgotten all about his search for the accomplished general. Somewhere in the back of his brain there lurked the consciousness that Mrs. Dew was only a temporary blessing, really there "to oblige Mrs. Methuen," till such time as a suitable and permanent servant should be obtained; but she fitted into her niche so perfectly, her sway was so benevolent, if a trifle despotic, that he began to look upon her as part of the established order of things, and, since his one visit to the High Class Registry Office, had made no effort of any kind to find her successor.

"Couldn't you see her for me, Mrs. Dew?" he entreated almost abjectly. "You could judge of her capabilities far better than I can."

Mrs. Dew raised her eyes and looked Mr. Wycherly full in the face, shaking her head the while: "No, sir, I think not, sir; it would be more satisfactory for all parties if you was to see the young person yourself."

Mr. Wycherly sighed heavily. "Do you think she seems likely to be suitable?"

Mrs. Dew's wholesome, good-natured face once more became sphinx-like. "I really couldn't say, sir. The appearance of the young women of the present day is often very much against them. We can only hope they're better servants than they look. Shall I show her up here, sir?"

"Please, Mrs. Dew, but I do wish you could have interviewed her for me—wait one moment. Could you kindly suggest some of the questions I ought to ask her?"

Mr. Wycherly's voice betrayed his extreme perturbation and he swung round in his revolving chair almost as though he had thoughts of laying violent hands on Mrs. Dew to prevent her departure.

She paused on the threshold and an imaginative person might perhaps have discovered a trace of pity in the glance she bent on Mr. Wycherly's agitated figure.

"The usual questions, sir, will, I should think, be quite sufficient."

And she shut the door behind her.

"The usual questions."

But what on earth were the usual questions? Mr. Wycherly could only think of those in the church Catechism. He picked up the dirty scrap of paper and read it again. "Exp." conveyed nothing to his mind. They were coming upstairs and he had no plan of campaign arranged. He felt absolutely forlorn and helpless. Suppose the young person didn't go away of her own accord? How could he ever suggest to her that the interview was at an end? He found himself longing for the moral support of Edmund, who at all events, never lacked the power of asking questions; and no sort of young person, or, for the matter of that, old person either, could inspire him with the unreasoning terror his guardian felt at the prospect of the tête-à-tête thus imminent.

Mrs. Dew opened the door.

"The young person," she announced, and her disapproving expression changed to one of downright horror as Mr. Wycherly rose to his feet to receive his visitor.

She was a short, stout young woman, dressed in a bright blue coat and skirt of the shade known by drapers as "Royal." Her hat was large and was trimmed with tumbled pink roses. Her hair was frizzy and flamboyant and her boots creaked—Mr. Wycherly thought to himself—infernally.

"Pray be seated," he said courteously.

The young woman selected a chair as far off as possible and giggled affably.

"I understand," he began in a faint voice, "that you think you would be able to undertake the duties of—er—thorough general servant—that I believe is the correct term?"

"I always 'ave been general," the young woman replied, "though I did think of betterin' myself, but Mrs. Councer she said as yours was a heasy place with no missus naggin' at you an' I thought it might suit me so I come along to have a look at things. It's a largish 'ouse for one but I suppose you don't 'ave much cookin' and waitin'."

"But there are three of us," Mr. Wycherly interposed eagerly. "I'm afraid that you would find it too much. You are rather young to undertake the entire management of this household. You see there would be the housekeeping to do—ordering, books to pay and so on, as well as the actual work."

"Oh, I could do all that," she replied confidently. "I'll do the shoppin' meself. I likes a run out between my reg'lar times, an' I'd see they didn't cheat you in the books, puttin' down things you've never 'ad."

Miss Fairfield smiled happily at Mr. Wycherly. She liked his looks. She was sure he would be easy to live with and probably would be unaware of the existence of the followers. In common with every woman ever brought into personal relations with him, she was certain that he was in need of protection from the others, and decided there and then that it was her mission to see that he wasn't put upon by anybody else.

"When will you be requirin' my services?" she asked.

Mr. Wycherly gasped. "I should require to consider the question," he said feebly, "and it is usual, is it not, to give some——"

"My last mistress'll give me a character. I was there six months and she almost went down on 'er knees for me to stop; but I couldn't, it was such an 'eavy place."

"Are you a good plain cook?" Mr. Wycherly asked, feeling here indeed was a leading question; some of Lady Alicia's instructions were gradually recurring to his mind. "Can you—er—do fish?"

"Fry fish, why bless you, sir, my last place was a fried-fish shop, that's why I left. One gets tired of frying morning, noon and night. I can do plain roast and boiled and milk puddin's an' that, but I don't profess to do pastry."

"Thank you," said Mr. Wycherly, and paused. To get rid of her, he was on the point of saying that he would consider her qualifications and let her know his decision later, when his delicate sense of honour pointed out that such a course would not be quite straightforward dealing. She was a terrible young woman and his fastidious soul revolted from the very thought of the fried-fish shop, but she was young and she was a woman; it would not be fair to let her depart with the impression that she was a likely applicant when nothing on earth could induce him to employ her.

"I fear," he added gently, "that you are not quite experienced enough for us here, and therefore I will not trouble your late mistress with inquiries. I am sorry you should have had to come in vain—were you to put any expense?"

The girl gave a short laugh. "I've only come about half a mile," she said. "I'm sorry I don't suit you; I think I could be very 'appy in your situation."

Poor Mr. Wycherly looked most unhappy. He rose and rang the bell, saying:

"Mrs. Dew will show you the way out." He opened the door for her with the gravest courtesy and she creaked downstairs, wondering why she had not demanded at least "'arf a crownd" for expenses. "I'd 'a' got it too," she thought to herself, "but it never entered me 'ead to say nothin' to 'im but the plain truth an' 'im so civil and affable."

Mr. Wycherly went back to his chair and reached for a pamphlet dealing with the philosophy of Eubulides, which he thought might be soothing, but he had got no further than the statement that, "in Eubulides positive faith was superseded by delight in his own subtlety," when there came another knock at his door and again Mrs. Dew presented herself.

"I beg your pardon, sir, for venturing to intrude upon you," Mrs. Dew said respectfully, "but did you come to any arrangement with the young person?"

Mr. Wycherly laid down Eubulides. "Oh, dear, no," he groaned, "she was quite impossible. A most well-meaning girl, I am sure—but——"

"I feared so, sir, from her very flashy appearance, but one always hopes they may be better than their looks. Being only temporary I should like to know you'd found someone really suitable."

"Look here, Mrs. Dew," said Mr. Wycherly, suddenly taking heart of grace. "Why should you be only temporary? Could you not settle down with us? If you find the work too much when my wards are at home why not get a young girl to help you?"

"You're very kind, sir," said Mrs. Dew, fingering her apron and looking embarrassed, "but you see, I'm not without encumbrances. Husband I've none, children I've none, but what I have got is a niece and my bits of things. I'm bound to keep a little home for her in the holidays, that's why I can't take a permanent situation. You see, no one wants a child of twelve tacked on to a servant for weeks at a time."

"But listen, Mrs. Dew, there is the cottage—the little cottage off the kitchen where your bedroom is now—why not bring your things and furnish it and the housekeeper's room and there would be a home for your niece?"

Mrs. Dew turned very red. "It's most uncommon kind of you, sir," she said, "but I shouldn't like to take advantage of you. You see, it's just when the young gentlemen would be at home her holidays come, and perhaps——"

"That, surely, would be the very time when she could be of most use to you."

Mrs. Dew looked queerly at Mr. Wycherly, then, as though forcing herself to speak against her will, she said slowly: "You see, sir, I must be straightforward with you. If Jane-Anne was like some girls—like what I was myself—I shouldn't 'esitate to accept your very kind offer, for it would make a great difference to me. I hate choppin' and changin' and if I may make so bold, sir, you need a staid person here to look after things, but Jane-Anne's the sort of child what crops up continual. I couldn't promise for 'er as she'd keep 'erself to 'erself like she ought. I'd do my best, sir, to keep her in our own part of the 'ouse, but——"

Mrs. Dew paused and shook her head. Whenever she was very much in earnest she dropped into the speech of her youth; the aitchless, broad-vowelled talk of the Cotswold country whence she came.

"But, I shall like to see your niece about the house," said Mr. Wycherly. "It will be pleasant to have a young girl growing up in our midst, good for me and for the boys."

Again Mrs. Dew gave Mr. Wycherly that queer look, half-scornful, half-admirative.

"You mustn't think, sir, that there's any real 'arm in Jane-Anne," she said earnestly. "There's nothing of the minx about her, I will say that; but—I don't know how to put it without being hard on the child, and yet it wouldn't be fair to you, sir, to let her come without telling you——"

Again Mrs. Dew paused and Mr. Wycherly looked rather anxious.

"She do make a sort of stir wherever she do go and that's the long and short of it." And Mrs. Dew relapsed into broadest Gloucestershire again as she blurted out this startling fact.

"Stir," Mr. Wycherly repeated, "stir. Do you mean that she is a particularly noisy child?"

"No, sir, not that. Jane-Anne isn't that; but she does things no other child ever thinks of doing and you can't seem to guard against it. The very first month she was at the asylum, she went and put 'er foot through a staircase window trying to see some soldiers as was passing. They had a board meeting about it."

Mr. Wycherly laughed. "It is unusual to put one's foot through a window, but surely that was an accident and not a moral offence?"

"It was a staircase window, as stretched all down one side of that wing," Mrs. Dew said solemnly, "and the bannisters was up against it, and Jane-Anne she leant over cranin' 'er 'ead to see them soldiers, and she lost 'er balance and swung back and drove 'er foot right through and cut 'er leg so it bled dreadful."

"Poor child," said Mr. Wycherly, "that's one thing she is quite safe from here. There will be no temptation for her to put her feet through any windows. Has she lost both her parents, Mrs. Dew?"

"That's another thing," said Mrs. Dew, dropping her voice mysteriously, "as I feel you ought to know, and that is, Jane-Anne's father was a Grecian."

"Really," Mr. Wycherly remarked, evidently quite unmoved by what Mrs. Dew considered a most damaging fact. "A Greek; how interesting! What was his name?"

"Staff rides," Mrs. Dew answered promptly. "At least that's what I call it, but he called it something longer. I've tried to English it as much as possible to match her really respectable Christian name."

"Do you happen to remember how it was spelt?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"Yes, sir, S-T-A-V-R-I-D-E-S."

"Ah," Mr. Wycherly exclaimed; "now I've got it. Stavrides. Quite a common Greek name. What part of Greece did he come from?"

"Athens, sir, an' it was there he met my sister, who was lady's maid to Mrs. Methuen's cousin. She'd been schoolroom-maid first of all, then when the young ladies grew up, they had her taught dressmaking and hairdressin' and took her everywhere with them. And when Lady Lettice married she took my sister Jane with her, and they travelled a lot, an' in Athens there was a carriage accident and my sister was thrown out and stunned, and this young man was passing and he picked her up, and it seems he fell in love with her there and then, for all her eye was swole up with the bump she got—she was a very-good-looking girl was Jane—anyway, 'e never rested till 'e'd married 'er. He was, I suppose, in a rather better position than she was, though, from bein' with the young ladies so constant, my sister seemed to have caught their pretty ways, and spoke exactly like them. She wasn't a bit like me," said Mrs. Dew simply, "you'd never 'ave thought we was sisters."

"What was Stavrides?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"A sort of writer, sir, for newspapers. When they got married he came to London, and he was correspondent for some paper, some Grecian paper. It isn't a trade I thinks much on, but he earned good money and he insured his life heavy. And then, just like him it was, he forgot to pay the premium, fell ill and died all of a hurry when Jane-Anne was but four-year-old, and my sister was left without anything at all but some forty pounds they 'ad in the bank."

"Poor thing," said Mr. Wycherly. "What did she do?"

"She did dressmaking, an' she took a lodger. Lady Lettice an' the young ladies 'elped her all they could, and she was doin' pretty well when she took an' died, an' she left Jane-Anne to me. My 'usban' was alive then—not as he was much use, an' I've done my best, but you see, I'm only a servant an' not being out reg'lar makes it harder. Lord Dursley, he got her a nomination for the asylum at Baresgill, but I don't know if she can stop there. It's very cold up there in Northumberland, an' she's got a delicate chest. She've been there fifteen months, but 'as 'ad a lot of illness, an' I don't know if she can keep on. They don't like it, you see, sir, such a lot of illness."

"I understand it is some kind of an orphanage. The boys, you know, spoke to me about your niece, Mrs. Dew. I quite look forward to making her acquaintance. Do they receive any special training where she is?"

"Oh, yes, sir, it's a most superior place where they train them for young servants. They get their education and their clothes and good, thorough training in household duties, and when they're seventeen they put them out in good families that they know about, where they take an interest in the servants and treat them well."

"It sounds an admirable institution," said Mr. Wycherly. "Are the children happy there?"

"Most of the girls, sir, are happy as birds. It's a really good place, sir, plenty of wholesome food, nice airy rooms—but there! Jane-Anne she frets something dreadful. Sometimes I fear she'll never make a good dependable servant. If it's book-learnin', now, she's on to it like a cat on to a mouse. There's never no complaint there—but you never know what flightiness Jane-Anne 'll be after."

"You see," Mr. Wycherly said indulgently, "she is only a child as yet. We must have patience. Anyway, Mrs. Dew, I hope that is settled. Send for your furniture and for Jane-Anne——"

"I am deeply obliged to you, sir," Mrs. Dew said earnestly, "and I will endeavour to serve you faithful. I will arrange with Miss Morecraft, her as I shares the 'ouse with, and I'll fetch Jane-Anne most thankfully when she can be moved——"

"Is she ill then?"

"She's managed to get a most fearful cold on 'er chest; 'ow I can't conceive, but so it is; she's that hoarse and croupy, Miss Morecraft's kep' 'er in bed, and what I really came to ask, sir, was if I might pop round after supper to see 'ow the child is."

"By all means, Mrs. Dew, and whenever she can be moved, bring her here. Then you can look after her yourself."

Mr. Wycherly was very exhausted after this long conversation. He lay back in his chair and closed his eyes with a sense of well-earned repose. Whatever this child—this window-breaking, "cropping-up," generally disturbing little girl might be, she could not be one half so dreadful as the sort of servant Mr. Wycherly saw himself a thrall to if Mrs. Dew deserted him. Besides, Mrs. Dew, herself, would be there to keep her in order.

"These domestic cares are very disorganising," he reflected. He felt a positive distaste for the Migrarian School of Philosophy just then. The pamphlet on Eubulides lay open at his elbow, but he ignored it. Instead, he went over to his book-case and took from it "Tristram Shandy," which he dearly loved. He opened it at random, standing where he was, and his eyes fell on this passage:

"'I can't get out—I can't get out,' said the starling.

"I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side towards which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity. 'I can't get out,' said the starling. 'God help thee!' said I, 'but I'll let thee out, cost what it will.'"

"I wonder now," Mr. Wycherly thought to himself, "if that poor little half-Greek girl feels like Sterne's starling."

CHAPTER VII

JANE-ANNE SWEARS FEALTY

"Minds lead each other in contrary directions, traverse each other in numberless points, and at last greet each other at the journey's end. An old man and a child would talk together; and the old man be led on his path and the child left thinking." JOHN KEATS.

Jane-Anne had managed to get an exceedingly bad cold. To run on wet grass in stockings, if one wears the stockings all the evening afterwards, is not a wise proceeding for a delicate person. And when, the next day, she went to keep her tryst with Edmund, she knew very well that her lung was at its old tricks again; and that, had she been "at the Bainbridge," matron would have sent for the doctor. He would have listened at her back with his funny indiarubber tube, and would then have muttered something mysterious about "crepitation."

Jane-Anne had her own idea of "crepitation," which she abbreviated to "the creppits." She always pictured this unfortunate lung as a bent and aged person sidling along "with legs that went tap-lapperty like men that fear to fall."

It was tiresome that lung; for whenever it began its tap-lapperty entertainment she felt so ill. Her head ached and her legs seemed to weigh tons; her throat was hot and painful, and something seemed to flutter in the palms of her hands like an imprisoned bird.

More dead than alive she crawled back from her meeting with the princess to the stuffy little house "down in St. Clement's" that her aunt shared with Miss Morecraft, knowing full well that bed would be her portion directly anyone noticed how ill she looked.

Miss Morecraft, a dressmaker of severely respectable and melancholy temperament, was not observant, and it happened that just then she was very busy, as her customers were nearly all servants, and a new dress at Whitsuntide is a matter of sacred ritual in that class.

She did, it is true, remark that Jane-Anne was "a dainty feeder" when the child left her dinner almost untasted, but she did not "hold with pampering children," and having eaten her own dinner with considerable relish, went back to her work, having pressed Jane-Anne into the service to do some basting.

It was not till the child nearly fainted during the afternoon that Miss Morecraft awoke to the fact that Jane-Anne was really ill. She was quite kind-hearted, and was rather shocked that she should have made the child sew when she was evidently unfit for any effort of the kind. She put her to bed, made her a cup of tea, and persuaded the milkman to call and tell Mrs. Dew how matters were.

During the evening, Mrs. Dew "popped round," took Jane-Anne's temperature, rubbed her with liniment, scolded her well, kissed her and tucked her up in bed, and left her unaccountably cheered and comforted.

Next morning a strange, new doctor came. He, too, listened at Jane-Anne's back with his funny double telephone. He, too, shook his head and murmured something about crepitation and congestion, just like the doctor at "Bainbridge's."

"Shall I be able to go back to school?" Jane-Anne croaked eagerly. She was hoarse as a raven.

"When does school begin?" asked the doctor.

"It starts on the 5th of May. I have to go up on the 4th. It's such a long way."

"And this is the 29th of April. No, certainly you won't. You won't be fit for school for another fortnight, if then. Are you sorry?"

"No," said Jane-Anne candidly, "I'm not sorry, but Aunt Martha'll be very sorry."

The doctor laughed. "Well, you must do your best to get well, that's all; but it's no use your going anywhere till that lung has ceased crackling."

Miss Morecraft was far too busy to attend to Jane-Anne herself, and Mrs. Dew, recklessly extravagant if there was real cause for anxiety where her sister's child was concerned, sent in a trained nurse.

The nurse did her duty by Jane-Anne, but considered the post rather beneath her dignity, and was not interested in the fidgetty little girl with the large eyes who sent up her temperature in an aggravating way by getting excited over trifles.

One evening, when the temperature was once more normal, Mrs. Dew informed Jane-Anne of her arrangement with Mr. Wycherly.

"Shall we really live there? Will it be our very own home—not shared?" the child demanded with incredulous delight.

"If there's any sharing it's Mr. Wycherly what shares his house with us," said Mrs. Dew. "I'm to have the cottage for myself, and we get the housekeeper's room for a sitting-room."

"And I shall live in the house with those nice boys?" Jane-Anne went on—"right in the same house."

"Yes," Mrs. Dew said; "but you must remember that you belong to the kitchen part and there must be no trespassin'. It would never do for you to be playin' with the young gentlemen like you was one of theirselves. You must understand that from the very first. Not but what they're very kind young gentlemen, and have ast after you over and over again, an' Mr. Wycherly likewise. Master Edmund, he wants to come and see you before he goes back to school."

"Oh, Aunt Martha, do let him. I should love it so. I promise I won't go up, I'll stay normal, I truly will."

"That I don't believe for one minute, Jane-Anne; why, if I was to take your temperature now—only I'm not going to—I know it'd be over a hundred, with you so pink and all. No, I don't hold with Master Edmund coming to see you here. I've never been really wrop up in this place—too many threads and snippets about for my fancy an' a smell like a draper's shop all day long. I've no wish as Master Edmund should see you here—. Now don't you go cryin' out before you're hurt. Wait till I can tell you——"

"Oh, aunt, what—do be quick."

"The doctor says that seein' the weather's so good, you can be moved any time now provided you go straight to bed when you get there——"

"And you're going to move me—oh, Aunt Martha, how lovelly—to-day?"

"No, not to-day, but to-morrow, nurse'll bring you in a fly. And you must promise to keep calm and not go bouncin' and exclaimin' and runnin' up to a hundred over nothing at all."

"Aunt Martha, I'll behave like a stucky-image," Jane-Anne protested.

"You're more like a Jack-in-the-box than any image I've ever come across, but I do think it'll be better for me to have you where I can see to your food my own self. I don't seem to have no faith in that nurse's beef-tea nor 'er arraroot—lumpy stuff what I saw. An' if you're to be got strong enough to go back to the Bainbridge in the next three weeks (I don't know how they 'll take this fresh worriment) you must be fed up. So now you know. You're to get up for your tea and go back to bed directly after, and you're to keep quiet and not get into a fantique nor go makin' a palladum all about nothin'. Do you hear me, Jane-Anne?"

"Yes, Aunt Martha, but I think fantiques and palladums must be lovelly things; they sound so, and I long to make them, only I don't know how."

"It strikes me it's little else you'll ever make. Now lie down in bed for I must run. Most considerate the master's been, letting me come off at all times to see you, and I hope you'll remember it and try and make yourself useful when you get about again. Good-bye, child, and we shan't be separated much longer for which I thank the Lord as made us both."

It marked a change in Mrs. Dew's attitude towards the household in Holywell that she spoke of Mr. Wycherly as "the master." It suggested a permanence in their relations which would have been very reassuring to him had he heard it. Jane-Anne, too, noticed the phrase, and when her aunt was gone gleefully repeated to herself:

"See-saw Margery Daw,

Jenny shall have a new master,

She shall have but a penny a day

Because she can work no faster."

"It's not Jenny really, it's Johnny, but Jenny does as well, and I'll work without the penny," thought Jane-Anne, "if only that beautiful old gentleman will be my master too."

Edmund had elected to take his guardian for a walk before tea, and led him over Magdalen bridge, out into the Cowley Road, and finally into Jeune Street.

"Why are you taking me this way?" Mr. Wycherly asked. "It does not appear to me to be a particularly agreeable neighbourhood."

"It isn't," Edmund frankly agreed, "but now we're here we may as well look in and see Jane-Anne; she's to sit up a bit this afternoon, Mrs. Dew said so, and she said I needn't trouble to go and see her because she's coming to us to-morrow, but I think we ought to go, you know, especially as we're here. You haven't seen her, and she'll like coming better if she's seen you."

"Edmund," said Mr. Wycherly, stopping in the middle of the road, "acknowledge that you have brought me here with the deliberate intention of visiting Mrs. Dew's niece."

"Well, Guardie, I did think of it. Don't you think it's the proper thing to do?"

By this time they had reached the door, whereupon Edmund knocked loudly without waiting for further discussion.

Miss Morecraft was much flustered.

"Yes, they could see the little girl if they didn't mind coming upstairs. She had just been got up and the nurse had gone out for a breath of fresh air. Very warm for the time of year wasn't it."

Miss Morecraft opened the bedroom door, and without any announcement squeezed herself against the outer wall that Mr. Wycherly might enter.

Jane-Anne was seated in an armchair at the window looking frail as a sigh. She wore a bright pink flannelette dressing-gown which accentuated her pallor. She loved this garment dearly, for dressing growns were not included in the uniform of "The Bainbridge." Most of the girls were far too strong and healthy to need them, and Mrs. Dew had made this for Jane-Anne during one of her many illnesses.

Mr. Wycherly stood in the narrow doorway and the afternoon sun shone in on him, on his silvery hair and gentle, high-bred face.

"May we come in, my dear?" he asked. "Do you feel well enough to see us?"

Poor Jane-Anne was too weak to stand up and curtsey. She flushed and paled, and paled and flushed as she turned her thin, sensitive little face towards Mr. Wycherly, but there was no mistaking the welcome in her great eyes, as she whispered: "Please do, sir, I'm so sorry I mayn't get up and put a chair for you."

"I'll get him a chair," said Edmund, pushing in under his guardian's arm, for the door was very narrow. "I thought I'd show him to you before you came to-morrow, then you won't feel strange with any of us."

There wasn't much room in that bedroom. The bed took up most of the floor and there was only one other chair besides Jane-Anne's, so Edmund sat on the end of the bed.

"You must make haste and get strong," Mr. Wycherly said kindly, "and if this fine weather goes on you'll be able to sit in the garden and get plenty of fresh air that way! And when you are able we must see about a little drive. That ought to be good for you."

"Oh!" exclaimed Jane-Anne. "Oh! I don't know how I shall wait till to-morrow, I want to come so much."

"Let's get a cab and take her now," Edmund suggested; "it would be a lark, and such a surprise for Mrs. Dew."

Jane-Anne looked from Edmund to Mr. Wycherly, but saw that the enchanting proposition found no favour in his eyes.

"We mustn't do that," he said, "we haven't got the doctor's permission, and I don't think Mrs. Dew has got her room ready yet."

"This bed's coming for me to-morrow," Jane-Anne said shyly. "The things in this room are Aunt's."

"You won't be such a squash in the room you're going to have," Edmund remarked. "It's not a big room but you'll be able to get round the furniture better."

"It will be so lovelly to have a little room of my own," Jane-Anne said softly.

"I hope you will sleep well in it, and get strong," said Mr. Wycherly. "And I am sure Mrs. Dew will make it as pretty for you as possible. And now, my child, we must go. I don't think you are very fit for visitors as yet, and we mustn't tire you. We just looked in to tell you how welcome you will be to-morrow."

"We've got a bathroom, you know," Edmund said proudly, anxious to do the honours of their house. "Hot and cold and a squirty thing for washing your head, you can use it for the rest of you, too, if you like, but it makes rather a mess. It's in the basin really, and we do each other sometimes. I do like a bathroom, don't you?"

Jane-Anne murmured her appreciation of that luxury, and Mr. Wycherly held out his hand to her, and she gave him hers; such a nervous little hand, so thin and hectic and fluttering: yet it grew still as it lay in his, and there seemed some subtle contact in its gentle clasp.

The child's eyes and the old man's met in a long gaze that asked and promised much.

The eager, hungry little face grew a thought dim to Mr. Wycherly, it was so wistful and so wan. Instead of good-bye, he said, "God bless you, my child, God bless you," and went out of the room rather quickly.

Edmund's farewells were longer, and Mr. Wycherly waited patiently for him in the sunny street. He had gone out so quietly that Miss Morecraft never heard him.

She heard Edmund, though, and hastened to the door to speed the parting guest.

Jane-Anne, faint with rapture, lay crumpled up in her chair.

"He looked at me," she whispered, "he looked at me just like he looked at him that night when I peeped through the window—just every bit as kind.

"See-saw Margery Daw,

Jenny has got a new master."

CHAPTER VIII

JANE-ANNE ASSISTS PROVIDENCE

"To be sick is to enjoy monarchial

Prerogatives." Elia.

The doctor was Mrs. Methuen's doctor, and she had told him something of Mrs. Dew and his little patient; of how that worthy woman had given up place after place in the last five years that she might keep "an 'ome" for her orphaned niece; of how Jane-Anne was born in Athens and brought to London when she was a baby; of the modest, beautiful lady's maid, her mother, and the brilliant irresponsible young journalist, her father, so that he felt a kindly interest in his excitable little patient, and was sympathetically glad that "an 'ome" had been found for aunt and niece that seemed to promise rooted comfort and stability for both of them.

Therefore, when, on the morning fixed for Jane-Anne's removal to Holywell, he came to sanction or forbid that removal, he refrained from taking her temperature and said that the child could go.

Whereupon Jane-Anne's strength was increased tenfold, so that when she was dressed she walked across the room by herself, and sat in a chair by the window while the nurse packed her yellow tin trunk.

Then came the great, the tremendous moment when the fly stood before the door, and the strong young nurse carried her downstairs and placed her in it, with a cushion for her back and a rug sent by Mr. Wycherly over her knees.

The drive passed like a brilliant dream. The men were up and the busy streets were full of bustling life and youthful jollity. Jane-Anne sat forward in her seat, the wavering colour vivid in her cheeks, and even the inverted pie-dish could not wholly shadow the bright gaiety of her eyes. All too soon it was over and they stopped before the archway in Holywell where Mrs. Dew was waiting to help her niece in at the side-door.

It seemed a little hard to be hustled up to her aunt's room and there and then undressed and put to bed—a tame ending to so thrilling an experience; but once between the sheets Jane-Anne discovered that she was unaccountably and extraordinarily tired. She meekly drank the egg beaten up in warm milk that her aunt brought her, lay back on the pillow, and at once fell fast asleep.

Since term began Edmund had been exceedingly busy. Never before had he seen so many young men gathered together.

Hitherto his acquaintance had lain almost exclusively among elderly persons or boys of his own age. To be sure there were two youngish masters at his preparatory school, but the mere fact that they were masters set them on a distant and undesirable plane for Edmund.

But now young men, young men were all around him: in the houses opposite, on the pavements, in the hitherto so stately and silent quadrangles, on the river, in the playing fields.

One night as he lay in bed Edmund had heard a great many cabs plying up and down Holywell, and in the morning this transformation had come to pass. The tide of youthful life flooded every corner. Even the grave grey buildings seemed to open sleepy eyes and laugh and wink at one another in enjoyment of this resistless torrent, and all the inherent sociability in Edmund's nature gushed forth to join and mingle in the jocund stream.

Before three days had passed he had friends in half a dozen colleges. His method of procedure was quite simple. He sallied forth without Montagu, who was shy and exclusive and would have died rather than address a stranger without legitimate cause, and selecting an apparently amiable and manifestly idle youth, asked him the way somewhere in broadest Doric. On two occasions he happened to hit upon a fellow-countryman, and directly he discovered this he spoke in an ordinary way, and they were friends at once. He generally explained exhaustively who he was and whence he came, where he lived and the resources of the establishment in Holywell, and his new-found friends evidently found his conversation amusing, for they neither snubbed nor checked his garrulity.

On the day of Jane-Anne's arrival he had been out all the morning finding his way about Oxford by the means indicated, and only returned just as Mrs. Dew was laying luncheon.

"Is Jane-Anne not coming till afternoon?" he asked.

"Jane-Anne's here, Master Edmund, been here these two hours."

"Here! and we've never been told nor seen her. Where is she?"

"Sound asleep in my bed, she's that weak—but I don't believe moving her's done her a bit of harm, she's sleeping like a baby and looks that contented——"

"Can we go and look at her?" asked Montagu.

"No, sir, please, sir, I'd rather she slep' as long as she can. She's not slep' much this last week an' I shall let her be till she wakes."

"Will you tell us whenever she wakes?" Edmund persisted. "You see, we go back to school in two days now so we shan't see very much of her, 'specially if we don't begin at once."

"You young gentlemen had better keep on with your own doin's and never mind Jane-Anne. She's got to go to school, too—soon as she's well enough," said Mrs. Dew primly. She set the last spoon and fork symmetrically in their places and went back to the kitchen to dish up lunch.

Edmund looked across at Montagu. "I shall stop in this afternoon, and I'm going to see Jane-Anne," he whispered obstinately; "she's in our house."

"So'm I," said Montagu with brief decision.

The bed and "bits of furniture" came from Jeune Street in the afternoon, and the noise of the men carrying things up the uncarpeted stairs woke Jane-Anne, who lay for a minute staring at the unfamiliar room and wondering where she was.

It was a fairly large room with a wide latticed window that overlooked the stone-cutter's yard, for the cottage was to the side of the house and its three windows looked that way. Clean muslin curtains hung at the window, so that Jane-Anne couldn't see out except when they moved with the breeze. The ceiling was low and an oak beam crossed it. Most of the rooms in the main part of the house were panelled, but here they were papered, and the paper was of a cheerful chintzy pattern with garlands of little pink roses.

The furniture was all of brightly polished mahogany that had been in Elsa's room at Remote, and it had that characteristic individual look only to be found in old furniture well tended by careful hands through many years.

The Chippendale Talboys had a scroll top with a pedestal in the centre, and on that pedestal was a little brass owl. The handles had lost their lacquer with time, but the warm red wood was mirror-like in its brightness, and in the great "press"—a cupboard in two divisions with deep sliding shelves—Jane-Anne watched the reflection of the fluttering curtain with sleepy satisfaction.

She had no idea why she liked these things so much better than the painted wood that furnished the bedroom in Jeune Street, but she did like them amazingly, and their presence filled her with such satisfaction as caused her for a little while to forget how exceedingly hungry she was.

Presently the door was opened a little way and a fair curly head was poked through cautiously. Jane-Anne was lying with her back to the door, and all that was visible of her was a night of black hair streaming over the quilt and a long slender mound in the bed where her body lay. She was so still that Edmund thought she was asleep, and was going away again when something, some tiny sound, caused her to turn round, and she saw him.

Edmund vanished like a flash and she heard his stentorian voice proclaiming: "She's awake, Mrs. Dew; you can bring that chicken."

Then he returned, and nodding at her in most friendly fashion seated himself at the end of the bed, remarking:

"What an awful lot of hair you've got; isn't it frightfully hot?"

"I can never keep the ribbons on it in bed. I don't mind it. I rather like to be hot."

The two stared at each other, and Edmund decided that Jane-Anne looked nicer in bed than when she was up. The soft, shadowy masses of her hair were infinitely more becoming than the pie-dish. Her forehead was smooth and placid. There was no deep wrinkle between her black eyebrows.

"I'm glad you're here," said Edmund genially; "but it's a pity you're in bed. You might have done some more fielding if you'd been up."

"I'm very sorry I can't run after balls for you, sir," Jane-Anne said meekly, "but I can't be sorry I'm in bed, for if I wasn't I'd be going back to the Bainbridge almost at once, and now doctor says I can't go for another fortnight."

"And you're glad not to go? Why?"

"Because——" said Jane-Anne; but at this moment Mrs. Dew appeared with a tray. She swept Edmund out of the room, plumped up the invalid's pillows, got her into a bed-jacket, and then stood over her while, with the best will in the world, Jane-Anne did full justice to her dinner.

"What a pretty room this is, Aunt Martha," she said when she had eaten the last spoonful of pudding. "What is it makes it so pretty?"

"The things in it is all good," Mrs. Dew replied, "all old and good; not at all what's suited to a servant's bedroom, if you ask me. But they was here when I came, an', of course, it isn't for me to find fault. The other things has come, and I've got them arranged, but the carpet couldn't be nailed down for fear of waking you. They look very different in a good-sized room to what they did in Jeune Street, I can tell you. I'm very pleased to see my own things what I'm used to. You shall have this room, Jane-Anne, while you're here. I'll move my clothes to-morrow and put yours in. If it isn't Master Edmund again, and Master Montagu with 'im—I never knew such perseverin' young varmints, an' the times I've sent them away. One'd think you was some sort of a exhibition, that one would. Yes, sirs, you may come in, but you mustn't stop long. One'd think as you'd never seen a sick person before, an' me not had time so much as to wash her face before you was back again. What! Mr. Wycherly wants to come and see her after tea? Well, it's a great honour, and very kind on his part after going yesterday and all."

This time the interview was brief and unsatisfactory, for Mrs. Dew remained in the room and Montagu, in consequence, was absolutely dumb, while Jane-Anne was too nervous to do more than mumble negatives or affirmatives to the innumerable questions asked by the quite unembarrassed Edmund.

After five minutes of it the boys departed of their own accord.

Jane-Anne slept again from lunch till tea time, and after tea Mr. Wycherly came to see her.

This time Mrs. Dew did not remain. She set a chair for him and left them. Jane-Anne was sitting up in bed, arrayed in a white dimity jacket of Mrs. Dew's. This garment was voluminous and much too large for its wearer, so that Jane-Anne's face and hair seemed to emerge from amidst a billowy sea of dimity. Her hair was still loose and streamed over the bed. Mrs. Dew had wanted to plait it up, but Jane-Anne said the thick plaits hurt her head when she lay down, so her aunt gave way.

"You are looking better, my child," said Mr. Wycherly.

"I am better, sir; I'm nearly well, I'm afraid."

"Afraid! but surely you want to be well?"

"I should if I was going to stay here," Jane-Anne said earnestly. "Sir, do you think you could stop me going back to the Bainbridge?"

"Stop you," Mr. Wycherly repeated, much perplexed. "But I thought——"

"I'm sure," Jane-Anne interrupted eagerly, "if it's to learn to be a servant that I've got to go back, Aunt could teach me just as well—better, I think. She can do everything they do there, and do it nicer than the people that teaches us. She is a good servant, isn't she, sir?"

"Your aunt is a quite admirable person," Mr. Wycherly said gravely, "and most accomplished in every household art; but from what she told me I gathered that this school is a very good one, and that it was a great help to her to have got you into it."

Jane-Anne's eager face blanched. "Please, sir," she whispered, "if I promise to eat very little and work very hard would you let me stay with you and aunt?" She clasped her hands and leant forward, devouring Mr. Wycherly's face with her great tragic eyes. "Aunt would be very angry if she knew I'd spoken to you; but you could stop me going if you liked, and if I go back, I shall die, I know I shall."

"What is it you dislike so much?" Mr. Wycherly asked.

"All of it, except the lessons, they are lovelly. I can't seem to do it; my back aches so, and it's so cold."

"But it won't be cold this time. Summer is almost here."

"It isn't the weather, it's my heart," cried Jane-Anne; "it's that that's so cold. Nobody cares much about me, they think me odd and funny. Do you think me odd and funny, sir?"

Mr. Wycherly certainly did, but he laid one of his beautiful old hands on Jane-Anne's, saying gently, "I think that as yet you are not very strong, and I am quite sure that it is bad for you to worry about going back. You can't possibly go back for another fortnight, your aunt said so, and—who knows——?"

Mr. Wycherly had not intended to say this last at all. It was most unwise and misleading, but the brown eyes held his and compelled him to give them comfort. He tried to patch up his mistake by saying, in a matter of fact tone: "Suppose Montagu or Edmund begged me not to send him back to school, what should I do? Because, you see, I know that school is the best place for them—though for me the sun sets and never rises till they come back. We all have to do things we don't like."

"But they like school—they told me so."

"You probably would like it, too, if you made up your mind to do so."

"I've tried so hard, sir. I really have. Your young gentlemen don't have to wear horrid clothes at their school; you don't know how dismal it is. I believe if I might live here with you and aunt I'd never have the creppits any more; I'd be so warm and happy in my heart."

"Well, you must keep on being warm and happy, and get strong and merry—and then—we'll see what can be done."

Oh, weak, soft-hearted Mr. Wycherly! Against his will, against his better judgment, the words slipped out.

Jane-Anne, white but radiant, lay back exhausted on her pillows. Mr. Wycherly stood up to go. "Promise me," he said, "that you won't worry, that you will eat and sleep as much as you can, that you will do everything that your good aunt and the doctor bid you, and that you will try to be happy and at home."

Jane-Anne sat forward again. "Mr. Wycherly, sir," she said breathlessly, "you won't forget, you will try and make aunt keep me? Oh, I have cried and cried, and prayed and prayed, and I don't think God can expect much more of a little girl like me, do you?"

"Crying is absolutely forbidden. You must promise me that you won't cry any more."

"I promise," she said meekly, and lay back on her pillows again. "But you, too; you won't forget?"

"I certainly shall not forget. Now I must really go."

He had reached the door, when an imperative cry from the bed stopped him.

"You haven't said it."

"Said what?" and Mr. Wycherly trembled lest she should force him to swear then and there that she should not go back to the Bainbridge.

"What you said yesterday afternoon. Please say it, and then perhaps He will."

"God bless you, my child," Mr. Wycherly mumbled, much embarrassed.

As he made his way through the housekeeper's room to his own part of the house he reflected that Mrs. Dew was certainly right when she described her niece as "making a stir." She had assuredly stirred his heart to a quite painful extent. He was moved and perturbed and puzzled as he had not been for many a long day, and through all his pondering there sounded Sterne's words to the imprisoned starling: "'God help thee—but I'll let thee out, cost what it will.'"

CHAPTER IX

THE QUEST

"My voice shall with thy future visions blend,

And reach into thy heart, when mine is cold,

A token and a tone...." Childe Harold.

Next day Jane-Anne was allowed to sit in the garden under the apple-tree: a queer little hunched-up figure in the tight stuff-dress and a shawl. She also wore the pie-dish, for Mrs. Dew was one of those people who considered it almost disreputable to be out of doors bare-headed.

She sat in a basket-chair and on her knees lay her most recent prize, "Home Influence," a fat handsome volume bound in purple cloth with gilt edges. For lessons, Jane-Anne had won every prize open to her at the asylum. Although she had only been there a year, and that year constantly broken by long bouts of illness, she had gained seven books. These, which included a Bible, a prayer-book, and church hymnal, with one other comprised her whole library. The prizes were all of a moral and edifying character, and Jane-Anne had read them over and over again hungrily, with the passionate interest and enthusiasm which she brought to everything outside her actual daily duties. And although she whole-heartedly admired them she was yet subconsciously critical and unsatisfied. She regarded her prizes with the greatest respect. Familiarity had, so far, bred no contempt for them in her mind, but all the time she felt that there was something lacking. Although they were the only books she possessed, they were not the only ones she had read. In the previous autumn, her mother's mistress, Lady Dursley, had commanded her aunt to take the child for a change to their place in Gloucestershire, accompanying the order with a liberal cheque for travelling expenses. The family was in Scotland and most of the big house shut up, and nearly all the servants were making holiday, except the housekeeper, an old friend of Mrs. Dew, and one elderly kitchen-maid. But the great library was open, for a young man had been sent down to catalogue the books. He was an intelligent young man and took a fancy to Jane-Anne and had her with him a great deal. He found her books he thought good for her, and on departure presented her with the little green-covered "Children's Treasury," compiled by Palgrave.

In this Jane-Anne read constantly and carefully, not because she was particularly attracted by the poems, though some of them she loved and learned by heart, but because whenever she came across any poetry she searched through it eagerly in the hope of finding a poem her father used to repeat to her. She had read and re-read the little green book unceasingly, but nowhere could she find her poem.

Her father died before she was five years old, but Jane-Anne's recollection of him was curiously vivid, and at this very moment her mind strove to materialise a memory elusive in some ways as a puff of smoke, sharp and defined in others as a tongue of leaping flame against a midnight sky.

The moment Mrs. Dew had safely disappeared into the house the child dragged off the pie-dish and cast it violently on the grass at her feet. Then she lay back in her chair, her eyes dreamy and pensive, though ever and again she knit her black eyebrows in her effort to remember.

Her thin hands lay folded above the unopened volume on her knees and she sat very still.

It was warm and pleasant in Mr. Wycherly's garden; a thrush sang in the boughs above her head, and every now and then pink and white petals dropped softly upon her hair. A flutter of wind blew over a great clump of narcissus bearing their perfume on its wings, and the heavy scent was memory-laden for Jane-Anne.

She saw a long, low-ceiled, lamp-lit room with a window at either end and all the furniture ranged round the walls that a free path might be open for the restless pacing up and down of one who was never too busy or too absorbed to be at the beck and call of an often fretful little girl. As in a vision she beheld that man "with all his keen worn look and Grecian grace" tramping to and fro and holding in his arms a tired, fidgetty child who could not sleep.

Backwards and forwards he went, and with the soothing movement was the sound of words sorrowful and majestic, musical in their rhythmic swing and balance: words that poor Jane-Anne could never remember though she felt that they were written indelibly on mind and heart but covered, covered deeply with layer upon layer of fugitive things of little worth. Some day, she was convinced, she would find that poetry and with it a thousand things about her father that she had forgotten. He often wore a narcissus in his button-hole, and as her head lay on his shoulder the crushed flower gave forth a double fragrance.

It was this familiar scent, strong in the warm old Oxford garden, that seemed to compass her about in an atmosphere of memories, memories of a time when she, too, was always warm, cared about, schemed for, enwheel'd around with love on every hand.

The lines between the black eyebrows were smoothed out as by a tender hand. The unremembered poem ceased to worry her. She would find it some day. Meanwhile, she was sure her daddy knew she loved him. There was something he had told her to remember and she had forgotten, but only for a little while. It would come back, she was sure it would come back. Here, in this house, where there were so many books, perhaps she would find it.

She saw again her beautiful, gentle mother, so calm always and patient. Mrs. Dew was careful to impress upon Jane-Anne that she in no way resembled her mother, and the child never resented this reproach, for had not that very mother rejoiced in her likeness to her father? "My little Maid of Athens," had been her mother's name for Jane-Anne, and Jane-Anne treasured it in her mind. She knew that her worthy aunt had never either liked or approved of her father, and this only made her more passionately loyal to his memory. She pondered these things in her heart, puzzled and pained sometimes, but never daunted in her pride. It was from no mean country that her father had come, she was sure of that. She knew little enough of Greece, nothing of its great history, but chance phrases that she had heard in infancy remained in her mind. She was sure that there was something to know, something worth knowing, and that she would know it some day.

She never spoke of her parents to her companions at the asylum; and although Mrs. Dew would often talk fondly and proudly of her mother and Jane-Anne loved her for it, her aunt's silence with regard to the father she adored filled the child with a resentment none the less bitter that it never found expression. Jane-Anne was perfectly aware of her hostile attitude, although Mrs. Dew was careful never to say one word in disparagement of a man she had been quite unable to understand; whom she had heartily disliked.

"I wonder why I'm thinking so much of my daddie since I came here?" Jane-Anne thought to herself. "I suppose it's because I'm happier."

Presently, over the grass towards her came Montagu, very long in the leg and short in the sleeve. Edmund was out zestfully finding his way about Oxford in his recently discovered fashion.

Montagu sat down on the grass at Jane-Anne's feet and looked up at her, smiling broadly, but never a word said he till he espied the book in her lap.

"What's that?" he asked.

"One of my prizes, sir," Jane-Anne answered primly.

"Is it decent?"

"It's most interesting."

"Can I look at it?"

The book changed hands and Montagu began to read. He turned the pages very fast, to the wonderment of Jane-Anne, who had never seen people read after this fashion.

He was lying face-downwards on the grass in front of her, and she watched his eyes as they swept the page from top to bottom in, apparently, one glance. She liked his thin brown face with the large kind eyes and firm capable mouth that was always shut when he wasn't talking, but just at that moment she thought that his expression was less pleasant than usual, that there was something scornful and almost sinister about his mouth, and yet she was sure that in some queer way he was amused. Why?

Jane-Anne had never found anything in the least amusing in the work in question; interesting, certainly; "touching" (the lady who gave them Sunday lessons at the asylum was fond of the word "touching") frequently; but humorous never. The authorities who chose books for female orphans at the Bainbridge did not consider the cultivation of a sense of humour in any way a necessary part of the training.

Presently Montagu began to dip into the book here and there, still reading with that lightning-like rapidity that so astonished Jane-Anne.

In five minutes he shut it with a slam and looked up at her and laughed.

"What awful rot," he remarked genially, as though certain of sympathy.

Jane-Anne gazed at him in consternation. "Rot?" she faltered.

"Fearful squish; you don't mean to say you really like it?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said, so offended that she quite forgot the respectful "sir."

"It's so stilted and bombastic and unnatural. The style"—here Montagu unconsciously gave a perfect imitation of his house master's manner—"is so cheap and meretricious."

"I don't understand about style in books," said Jane-Anne, still much umbraged. "D'you mean the binding?"

"Good gracious, no. I mean the way it's written. Listen to this"—and Montagu opened the book haphazard and read the following extract aloud:—"'He had been minister of a favourite church in one of the southern towns, and master of an establishment for youths of high rank, in both which capacities he had given universal satisfaction. The reprehensible conduct of some of his pupils, carried on at first so secretly as to elude his knowledge, at length became so notorious as to demand examination. He had at first refused all credence, but when proved by the confused replies of all, and half-confession of some, he briefly and emphatically laid before them the enormity of their conduct, and declared, that as confidence was entirely broken between them, he would resign the honour of their education, refusing to admit them any longer as members of his establishment.' There!" Montagu exclaimed, "could you have anything worse?"

"I think it's all said very properly and grandly," Jane-Anne protested. "I don't see what's the matter with it at all."

Montagu rolled over on the grass and sat up. "It's the grandness that's so detestable."

"It's my best prize," she said indignantly.

"I'm sorry," said Montagu, seeing that she was really hurt, "but you ask Guardie about that sort of writing."

"It's printed," snapped Jane-Anne.

Montagu gazed at her in hopeless bewilderment. He had never before argued with a girl.

Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes filled with angry tears. She clenched her thin little hands and bit her lips to keep from bursting into sobs.

"I say," Montagu exclaimed, with real contrition, "why do you mind? What does it matter what I think?"

"If you," Jane-Anne gasped, "had as few books as me, and loved them every one dearly, and then someone came along and abused them and called them 'rot' and 'merry something' and 'squish,' you wouldn't like it."

This time the big tears escaped, rolled over and down her cheeks, dropping with a splash on to the plaid shawl covering her knees.

And at this critical moment Mr. Wycherly came out of the house and across the grass towards them. He had seen the children from his study window, and remembering that the boys went back to school next day, decided to seek their society under the pleasant shade of the apple-tree.

Montagu stalked over to the tool house to fetch a chair for his guardian and arrived with it as Mr. Wycherly reached the apple-tree. Jane-Anne had lost her handkerchief, the tears were shining on her cheeks, and she gave a most unmistakable sniff just as Mr. Wycherly reached them. But she stood up and curtsied with downcast eyes and burning cheeks, and at the same moment Montagu came back bearing a chair for his guardian.

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Wycherly.

Jane-Anne continued to stand, and lifted her tear-washed eyes to his face. Had it been stern or severe she could never have answered a word; as it was, she said quite simply: "He didn't like my prize and I minded."

Mr. Wycherly sat down in the chair Montagu had brought and looked from the pained and indignant Jane-Anne to the evidently puzzled and distressed Montagu.

"Suppose we all sit down and try to come to a better understanding," he said.

Jane-Anne sank heavily into her chair. She was still weak, and even the little effort to greet Mr. Wycherly with due respect caused her legs to quake and her heart to beat thunderously in her ears.

She leant her head against the back of the chair and looked so white that for a moment Mr. Wycherly thought she was about to faint. But she did nothing of the kind.

Instead, she said in a voice that wholly belied her exhausted appearance: "Have you read 'Home Influence,' sir?"

"I don't think so," said Mr. Wycherly; "is that the name of the book under discussion?"

Jane-Anne held it out towards him; he took it from her carefully, placed his eye-glasses on his nose, opened it haphazard, and began to read.

Precisely the same thing happened as with Montagu. His eyes sought a page and he turned it. This extraordinary way of reading was not peculiar to Montagu, that was evident. But in Mr. Wycherly's face neither scorn nor amusement was portrayed, only a polite interest.

In three minutes Montagu said, "Well?"

Mr. Wycherly closed the book. "I cannot," he said, "be expected to express an opinion after so cursory a glance at the contents. Montagu, go and ask Mrs. Dew for a glass of milk; this child looks faint; bring some biscuits, too."

Montagu sped away, and he turned to Jane-Anne.

"You mustn't mind him," he said kindly. "Clever Winchester boys are always intolerant—while they are boys. Montagu reads a great deal more than he can digest, and people with indigestion are proverbially cantankerous."

Jane-Anne didn't understand what he meant in the very least, but she felt immediately and immensely comforted. So much so, that she was impelled to speak to Mr. Wycherly of her thoughts when she first came out.