e better selection of the berries went into the clear syrup in the
preserving-kettle. Juliet flew to get her glass pots ready. She stopped to
stir something in a saucepan. She thrust some eggs into the small
ice-chest to cool them for the salad dressing soon to be made. She kept
one eye on the clock, for the strawberry preserve had to be timed to a
minute--ten, no more, no less. It was a strenuous hour.

As she dipped up the fourth ladleful of crimson richness--translucent as a
church window--and filled the waiting jar, a peculiar pungent odour
drifted across the fragrance of the strawberries. Juliet dropped her ladle
and pulled open the oven door.

The delicate cake which she had compounded with especial care because it
was Mrs. Dingley's favourite, lay a blackened ruin. Some of it had run
over upon the oven bottom and become a mass of cinders. Juliet jerked the
cake-tin out into the daylight and shut the oven door with a slam.

It was at this unpropitious moment that a figure appeared in the
doorway--a tall, slim figure, in crisp, cool, white linen. A charming
white hat surmounted Mrs. Wayne Carey's carefully ordered hair, a white
parasol in her hands completed a particularly chaste and appropriate
morning toilette for a young woman who had nothing to do with kitchens.

She was regarding with interest the young person at the range. Juliet wore
one of her characteristic working frocks, and the big pinafore which
enveloped it from head to foot was of an attractive design. But the
morning's flurry had set its signs upon her, and the pinafore was not as
immaculate as it had been three hours earlier. Her hair, curling moistly
about her flushed face, had been impatiently pushed back more than once,
and its disorder, while not unpicturesque, was suggestive of a somewhat
perturbed mind. Her hands were pink with strawberry juice. She looked
warm, tired, and--if the truth must be told--at the moment not a little
out of temper. The smile with which she welcomed her friend could hardly
be said to be one of absolute pleasure.

"I'm afraid I've come at the wrong time," said Judith, regretfully. "Did
you just burn something? Too bad. I suppose all young housekeepers do
that. Where's your--assistant?"

"She's not here to-day," said Juliet, ladling up strawberry preserve with
more haste than caution. Her fingers shook a little but she kept her voice
tranquil. "It's all right. A number of things had to be done at once,
that's all.