tters, and there came a little
knock at the door.

"Come in," he called; and there entered Nell.

She was carrying very carefully a little tray covered with a
snow-white doyley, and on it were a glass of milk and a plate
of mulberries. She placed it before him.

"I thought perhaps you would like a little lunch, Father," she
said gently; and Pip was seized with a sudden coughing fit.

"My DEAR child!" he said.

He looked at it very thoughtfully.

"The last glass of milk I had, Nellie, was when I was Pip's age,
and was Barlow's fag at Rugby. It made me ill, and I have never
touched it since."

"But this won't hurt you. You will drink this?" She gave him one
of her most beautiful looks.

"I would as soon drink the water the maids wash up in, my child."
He took a mulberry, ate it, and made a wry face. "They're not
fit to eat."

"After you've eaten about six you don't notice they're sour,"
she said eagerly. But he pushed them away.

"I'll take your word for it." Then he looked at her curiously.
"What made you think of bringing me anything, Nellie? I don't
ever remember you doing so before."

"I thought you might be hungry writing here so long," she said
gently; and Pip choked again badly, and she withdrew.

Outside in the blazing sunshine Judy was mowing the lawn.

They only kept one man, and, as his time was so taken up with the
horses and stable work generally, the garden was allowed to fall
into neglect. More than once the Captain had spoken vexedly of
the untidy lawns, and said he was ashamed for visitors to come to
the house.

So Judy, brimming over with zeal, armed herself with an abnormally
large scythe, and set to work on the long, long grass.

"Good heavens, Helen! you'll cut your legs off!" called her
father, in an agitated tone.

He had stepped out on to the front veranda for a mild cigar after
the mulberry just as she brought her scythe round with an
admirable sweep and decapitated a whole army of yellow-helmeted
dandelions.

She turned and gave him a beautiful smile. "Oh, no, Father!--why,
I'm quite a dab at mowing."

She gave it another alarming but truly scientific sweep.

"See that--and th-a-at--and tha-a-a-at!"

"Th-a-at" carried off a fragment of her dress, and "tha-a-a-at"
switched off the top of a rose-bush; but there are details to
everything, of course.

"Accidents WILL happen, even to the best regulated grass-cutters,"
she said composedly, and raising the scythe