Lodge they found everything very nice and comfortable. Mrs.
Jermy and Mrs. Beadon (as Milly was to be called), who had come earlier
in the morning with a cabful of yesterday's purchases, had carried out
Lettice's instructions to the letter. The best room in the house looked
out upon a delightful garden landscape--two borders, backed by
well-grown box and bay-trees, holly, Irish yews, and clambering roses,
with a lessening crowd of herbaceous plants in front, dwindling down to
an edge of brilliant annuals on either side; and between these a long
and level lawn, broken near the house by a lofty deodara, and ending in
a bowling-green, and a thickly-planted bank of laurels, beyond which lay
a far-off vista of drooping fruit-trees. The garden was reached through
a small conservatory built outside a French window at one end of the
room, and a low verandah ran along the remainder of the garden front.

Inside, all was as Lettice had planned it. A square writing table in
front of the window was covered with a dozen of the books which had made
most noise during the past season, with the November magazines, and the
weekly papers which Alan had been wont to read. Milly had cut them all
over night, and here they lay, with an easy-chair beside them, ready to
tempt the student when he felt inclined and able to read. That was not
just yet; but Alan saw the pile, and darted at his guardian angel
another look of gratitude from his lustrous, melancholy eyes.

"Why, here," he said, looking round the room and out upon the garden, "a
man must get well only too soon! I shall steadily refuse to mend."

"You will not be able to help yourself," said Lettice. "Now you are
going to be left alone----"

"Not alone!"

"For half an-hour at the very least. All this floor belongs to you, and
you are to have nothing to do with stairs. When you want anything you
are to ring this bell, and Milly, whom you saw when we came in, will
attend on you. Here, on this sideboard, are wine, and biscuits, and
jelly, and grapes. Sit down and let me give you a glass of wine. We will
have some lunch at one, tea at four, and dinner at seven--but you are to
be eating grapes and jelly in between. The doctor will come and see you
every morning."

"What doctor?"

"Why, the doctor of the Establishment, to be sure!"

"Oh, this is an Establishment?"

"Yes."

"It is more rational in its plan than some I have heard of, since it
takes in your nurse and your nurse's mai