would be all
right. But meanwhile not a single thing done for the war!--not a
_sou_ to the Red Cross, or to any war funds! And hundreds spent on
antiquities--thousands perhaps--getting them deeper and deeper into
debt. For she was quite aware that they were in debt; and her own
allowance was of the smallest. Two hundred and fifty a year, too,
for Miss Bremerton!--when they could barely afford to keep up the
garden decently, or repair the house. She knew it was two hundred
and fifty pounds. Her father was never reticent about such things,
and had named the figure at once.

'Why wasn't Miss Bremerton doing something for the war? _Greek_
indeed! when there was this fearful thing going on!' And in the
evening air, as the girl turned her face towards the moonrise, she
seemed to hear the booming of the Flanders guns.

And now Miss Bremerton was to do the housekeeping, and to play tutor
and chaperon to her. Pamela resented both. If she was not to be
allowed to scrub in a hospital, she might at least have learnt some
housekeeping at home, for future use. As for the Greek lessons, it
was not easy for her to be positively rude to any one, but she
promised herself a good deal of passive resistance on that side. For
if nothing else was possible, she could always sew and knit for the
soldiers. Pamela was not very good at either, but they did something
to lessen the moral thirst in her.

Ah, there was the library door. Miss Bremerton coming out--perhaps
to propose a lesson! Pamela took to flight--noiseless and
rapid--among the bosky corners and walks of the old garden.

Elizabeth emerged, clearly perceiving a gleam of vanishing white in
the far distance. She sighed, but not at all sentimentally. 'It's
silly how she dislikes me,' she thought. 'I wonder what I can do!'

Then her eye was caught by the tea-table still standing out in the
golden dusk, which had now turned damp and chilly. Careless of
Pamela not to have sent it away! Elizabeth examined it. Far too many
cakes--too much sugar, too much butter, too much everything! And all
because the Squire, who seemed to have as great a need of economy as
anybody else, if not more, to judge from what she was beginning to
know about his affairs, was determined to flout the Food
Controller, and public opinion! What about the servants? she
wondered.

Perceiving a little silver bell on the table she rang it and waited.
Within a couple of minutes Forest emerged from the house. Elizabeth