. As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last: It would
please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see how he relishes
a baked apple still. But he's quite deaf. And a mercy, I always think.
For what we should have done with him in the air-raids, I don't know."

"Ah!" said Soames. "What did you do with him?"

"We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the cellar,
so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang. It would never have done
to let him know there was a war on. As I said to Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy
rings, they may do what they like--I'm going up. My dear mistresses
would have a fit if they could see him ringing and nobody going to him.'
But he slept through them all beautiful. And the one in the daytime he
was having his bath. It was a mercy, because he might have noticed the
people in the street all looking up--he often looks out of the window."

"Quite!" murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! "I just want
to look round and see if there's anything to be done."

"Yes, sir. I don't think there's anything except a smell of mice in the
dining-room that we don't know how to get rid of. It's funny they should
be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy took to not coming down,
just before the War. But they're nasty little things; you never know
where they'll take you next."

"Does he leave his bed?"--

"Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the window in
the morning, not to risk a change of air. And he's quite comfortable in
himself; has his Will out every day regular. It's a great consolation to
him--that."

"Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has anything to
say to me."

Smither coloured up above her corsets.

"It will be an occasion!" she said. "Shall I take you round the house,
sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?"

"No, you go to him," said Soames. "I can go round the house by myself."

One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt that
he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms so saturated with
the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, had left him, Soames
entered the dining-room and sniffed. In his opinion it wasn't mice, but
incipient wood-rot, and he examined the panelling. Whether it was worth
a coat of paint, at Timothy's age, he was not sure. The room had always
been the most modern in the house; and only a faint smile curled Soames'
lips and nostr