e help you up," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, all consideration.

"Oh, thank you--I can manage perfectly. It's only sometimes that
my stick prevents me--"

Mrs. Fisher got up quite easily; Mrs. Arbuthnot had hovered over
her for nothing.

"I'm going to have one of these gorgeous oranges," said Mrs.
Wilkins, staying where she was and reaching across to a black bowl
piled with them. "Rose, how can you resist them. Look--have this one.
Do have this beauty--" And she held out a big one.

"No, I'm going to see to my duties," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, moving
towards the door. "You'll forgive me for leaving you, won't you," she
added politely to Mrs. Fisher.

Mrs. Fisher moved towards the door too; quite easily; almost
quickly; her stick did not hinder her at all. She had no intention of
being left with Mrs. Wilkins.

"What time would you like to have lunch?" Mrs. Arbuthnot asked
her, trying to keep her head as at least a non-guest, if not precisely
a hostess, above water.

"Lunch," said Mrs. Fisher, "is at half-past twelve."

"You shall have it at half-past twelve then," said Mrs.
Arbuthnot. "I'll tell the cook. It will be a great struggle," she
continued, smiling, "but I've brought a little dictionary--"

"The cook," said Mrs. Fisher, "knows."

"Oh?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"Lady Caroline has already told her," said Mrs. Fisher.

"Oh?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"Yes. Lady Caroline speaks the kind of Italian cooks understand.
I am prevented going into the kitchen because of my stick. And even if
I were able to go, I fear I shouldn't be understood."

"But--" began Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"But it's too wonderful," Mrs. Wilkins finished for her from the
table, delighted with these unexpected simplifications in her and
Rose's lives. "Why, we've got positively nothing to do here, either of
us, except just be happy. You wouldn't believe," she said, turning her
head and speaking straight to Mrs. Fisher, portions of orange in either
hand, "how terribly good Rose and I have been for years without
stopping, and how much now we need a perfect rest."

And Mrs. Fisher, going without answering her out the room, said
to herself, "She must, she shall be curbed."

Chapter 8

Presently, when Mrs. Wilkins and Mrs. Arbuthnot, unhampered by
any duties, wandered out and down the worn stone steps and under the
pergola into the lower garden, Mrs. Wilkins said to Mrs. Arbuthnot, who
seemed pensive, "Don't you see that if somebody els