hesitated, then plunged.

'Take away the tea, please, Forest. And--and I should like to
consult you. Do you think anybody wants as much tea and cakes in
war-time?' She pointed to the table.

Forest paused as he was lifting the silver tray, and put it down
again. He looked at the table; then he looked at the lady opposite.

'We servants, Miss, have never been asked what _we_ think. Mr.
Mannering--that's not his way.'

'But I may ask it, mayn't I, Forest?'

Forest's intelligent face flamed.

'Well, if we've really to speak out what we think, Miss--that's Cook
and me--why, of course, the feeding here--well, it's a scandal!
that's what it is. The Master will have it. No change, he says, from
what it used to be. And the waste--well, you ask Cook! _She_ can't
help it!'

'Has she been here long, Forest?'

'Fifteen years.'

'And you?'

'Twenty-two, Miss.'

'Well, Forest,' Miss Bremerton approached him confidingly, 'don't
you think that you, and Cook, and I--you know Mr. Mannering wishes
me to do the housekeeping--well, that between us we could do
something?'

Forest considered it.

'I don't see why not, Miss,' he said at last, with caution. 'You can
reckon on me, that's certain, and on Cook, that's certain too. As
for the young uns, we can get round them! They'll eat what they're
given. But you'll have to go careful with the Squire.'

Miss Bremerton smiled and nodded. They stood colloguing in the
twilight for ten minutes more.

CHAPTER III

'I say, Pamela, who _is_ this female, and why has she descended on
us?'

The speaker was Desmond Mannering. He was sitting on the edge of a
much dilapidated arm-chair in the room which had been the twins'
"den" from their childhood, in which Pamela's governess even, before
the girl's school years, was allowed only on occasional and
precarious footing. Here Pamela dabbed in photography, made
triumphant piles of the socks and mittens she kept from her father's
eye, read history, novels, and poetry, and wrote to her school
friends and the boys she had met in Scotland. Ranged along the
mantelpiece were numbers of snapshots--groups and single
figures--taken by her, with results that showed her no great
performer.

At the moment, however, Pamela was engaged in marking Desmond's
socks. She was very jealous of her sisterly prerogative in the
matter of Desmond's kit, and personal affairs generally. Forest was
the only person she would allow to advise her, and one