"I know that we had it in
London, but this floor ought to be bare. It is far too beautiful."

"You still have a mania for under-furnishing. Would you care to come
into the dining-room before you start? There's no carpet there. They
went in, and each minute their talk became more natural.

"Oh, WHAT a place for mother's chiffonier!" cried Helen.

"Look at the chairs, though."

"Oh, look at them! Wickham Place faced north, didn't it?"

"North-west."

"Anyhow, it is thirty years since any of those chairs have felt the sun.
Feel. Their dear little backs are quite warm."

"But why has Miss Avery made them set to partners? I shall just--"

"Over here, Meg. Put it so that any one sitting will see the lawn."

Margaret moved a chair. Helen sat down in it.

"Ye--es. The window's too high."

"Try a drawing-room chair."

"No, I don't like the drawing-room so much. The beam has been
match-boarded. It would have been so beautiful otherwise."

"Helen, what a memory you have for some things! You're perfectly right.
It's a room that men have spoilt through trying to make it nice for
women. Men don't know what we want--"

"And never will."

"I don't agree. In two thousand years they'll know. Look where Tibby
spilt the soup."

"Coffee. It was coffee surely."

Helen shook her head. "Impossible. Tibby was far too young to be given
coffee at that time."

"Was father alive?"

"Yes."

"Then you're right and it must have been soup. I thinking of much
later--that unsuccessful visit of Aunt Juley's, when she didn't realise
that Tibby had grown up. It was coffee then, for he threw it down on
purpose. There was some rhyme, 'Tea, coffee--coffee tea,' that she said
to him every morning at breakfast. Wait a minute--how did it go?"

"I know--no, I don't. What a detestable boy Tibby was!"

"But the rhyme was simply awful. No decent person could put up with it."

"Ah, that greengage-tree," cried Helen, as if the garden was also part
of their childhood. "Why do I connect it with dumb-bells? And there come
the chickens. The grass wants cutting. I love yellow-hammers."

Margaret interrupted her. "I have got it," she announced.

"'Tea, tea, coffee, tea,
Or chocolaritee.'

"That every morning for three weeks. No wonder Tibby was wild."

"Tibby is moderately a dear now," said Helen.

"There! I knew you'd say that in the end. Of course he's a dear."

A bell rang.

"Listen! what's that?"

Helen said, "Perh