so has mother."

Debby and Tom exchanged glances. "Don't you worry, Audrey. Let Jobey
make his bed, perhaps the Brownies will come along at night, and fill it
with seeds."

"He would only pull them up, as soon as they showed above ground."

"Oh, no, he wouldn't, he'd think they were young herbs--until it was too
late. Then we'd get father to let them stay." Debby was quite hopeful.

"No," burst in Tom eagerly, "I know what we'll do. We'll tell him to
leave them 'cause mother likes them. He'd do anything for mother."

Audrey went to the cupboard, and took down a tumbler. "I am going to take
up mother's glass of milk now," she said. There was a new note in her
voice, a new light in her eye. Irene's encouragement had filled her heart
and brain again with the joy of creating something with her own hand and
pen; with the hope of helping others in the way in which help was so
greatly needed--and by her own work too. But what added most of all to
her new pleasure in her work--though she was not yet old enough to realise
it--was the zest of contrast, and the happy, satisfying feeling that the
time and the opportunity were her own, and not being taken at the expense
of others.

"Audrey, I will take up the milk to mother. You look tired already."

"I am rather," sighed Audrey, "and I haven't half done yet. Irene and I
are going to make cakes."

Faith seized the tray with the tumbler on it, and, anxious to help, dashed
upstairs with it. By the time she reached her mother's room a
considerable quantity of the milk was spilled over the nice clean
tray-cloth.

"Oh, bother!" she cried impatiently, as, in opening the door, she upset a
lot more, "it is such nonsense having tray-cloths and all those faddy
things. If I had brought it in my hand, without any tray at all, it
wouldn't have mattered."

"Would it not? What do you think I drink milk for, Faith?"

"Why for nourishment, of course. To make you strong."

"Well then, does it not matter if you deprive me of a third of my
nourishment, of my strength?"

"Oh, mother!" Faith looked shocked, "of course it does."

"And, apart from that, if you had brought it in your hand, and spilled it,
you would have ruined the stair carpets, and you know how very, very hard
it would be to get new ones."

"Oh! I hadn't thought of that. I suppose that is why one uses trays.
The cloth doesn't matter--that will wash--but I am very sorry I wasted the
milk, mother."

"But