er hand with
her.

"I do think," said the freckled one, "that she wants nothing
except quiet."

And perhaps the freckled one pulled the one with the hand by the
sleeve, for the hold on Scrap's forehead relaxed, and after a minute's
silence, during which no doubt she was being contemplated--she was
always being contemplated--the footsteps began to scrunch the pebbles
again, and grew fainter, and were gone.

"Lady Caroline has a headache," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, re-entering
the dining-room and sitting down in her place next to Mrs. Fisher. "I
can't persuade her to have even a little tea, or some black coffee. Do
you know what aspirin is in Italian?"

"The proper remedy for headaches," said Mrs. Fisher firmly, "is
castor oil."

"But she hasn't got a headache," said Mrs. Wilkins.

"Carlyle," said Mrs. Fisher, who had finished her omelette and
had leisure, while she waited for the next course, to talk, "suffered
at one period terribly from headaches, and he constantly took castor
oil as a remedy. He took it, I should say, almost to excess, and
called it, I remember, in his interesting way the oil of sorrow. My
father said it coloured for a time his whole attitude to life, his
whole philosophy. But that was because he took too much. What Lady
Caroline wants is one dose, and one only. It is a mistake to keep on
taking castor oil."

"Do you know the Italian for it?" asked Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"Ah, that I'm afraid I don't. However, she would know. You can
ask her."

"But she hasn't got a headache," repeated Mrs. Wilkins, who was
struggling with the maccaroni. "She only wants to be let alone."

They both looked at her. The word shovel crossed Mrs. Fisher's
mind in connection with Mrs. Wilkins's actions at that moment.

"Then why should she say she has?" asked Mrs. Arbuthnot.

"Because she is still trying to be polite. Soon she won't try,
when the place has got more into her--she'll really be it. Without
trying. Naturally."

"Lotty, you see," explained Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling to Mrs.
Fisher, who sat waiting with a stony patience for her next course,
delayed because Mrs. Wilkins would go on trying to eat the maccaroni,
which must be less worth eating than ever now that it was cold; "Lotty,
you see, has a theory about this place--"

But Mrs. Fisher had no wish to hear any theory of Mrs. Wilkins's.

"I am sure I don't know," she interrupted, looking severely at
Mrs. Wilkins, "why you should assume Lady Ca