hich she could read and write
undisturbed. For though Audrey resembled her father's mother in many
ways, she had also inherited her mother's taste for writing and reading.
That was four years ago, when Audrey was eleven and Faith ten, and Deborah
and Tom five and four respectively. Baby Joan, aged eighteen months,
Audrey had not yet seen.

Thoughts of his eldest daughter were uppermost in Mr. Carlyle's mind as he
glanced from the unappetising remains of a joint lying on a dish on which
it had already appeared twice, to the scrap of dry cheese and the
unpolished knife lying beside it.

"I--I am afraid that is all there is, father. Won't it do?" Faith looked
at him with troubled eyes. "Shall I tell Mary to cook you some eggs?"

"No, no. What is here will do very well for me, but you--wouldn't you
prefer eggs--or----"

"Oh no, thank you, I am so hungry I can eat anything," said Faith
cheerfully. "Father, Joan is asleep, can't we tuck her up snugly on the
sofa while we are having our supper? She would be certain to wake up if I
took her upstairs to her cot."

"Of course she would. If you will make her a nice little nest on the sofa
I will pop her into it so gently she will not know she has been moved.
There now, wasn't that clever!"

Faith again held up a warning finger, but Joan only stretched her limbs a
little in her new nest, and forthwith dropped asleep again.

With a smile of triumph at each other the two nurses turned away to the
supper-table, and Mr. Carlyle said grace, and with her deep relief at the
news about her mother still glowing in her heart, Faith joined in with a
deeper sense of real gratitude than she had known before.

"Daddy," she said presently, "you said you wanted to talk to me.
Was it about mother?"

"Yes, dear, and--and other things too. I have been thinking matters over
since I left the doctor, and I have come to the conclusion that I must
send and have Audrey home."

"Audrey home! Oh, how jolly!" Faith's eyes lighted with pleasure.
"That will be lovely. But," with sudden misgiving, "why must she come
home, daddy?"

"Well, for one thing, your mother will need companionship--more than you
can give her with the children taking up so much of your time.
And, for another, it will be a relief to your mother to know that Audrey
is here looking after things. We don't want a stranger, and, indeed,
I can't afford to have anyone extra in just now. We have had so much
illness and