y she thought he seemed uneasy.

'As a matter of fact,' he said, in rather a small voice, 'I believe
that is Hermione come now, with Gerald Crich. She wanted to see the
rooms before they are furnished.'

'I know,' said Ursula. 'She will superintend the furnishing for you.'

'Probably. Does it matter?'

'Oh no, I should think not,' said Ursula. 'Though personally, I can't
bear her. I think she is a lie, if you like, you who are always talking
about lies.' Then she ruminated for a moment, when she broke out: 'Yes,
and I do mind if she furnishes your rooms--I do mind. I mind that you
keep her hanging on at all.'

He was silent now, frowning.

'Perhaps,' he said. 'I don't WANT her to furnish the rooms here--and I
don't keep her hanging on. Only, I needn't be churlish to her, need I?
At any rate, I shall have to go down and see them now. You'll come,
won't you?'

'I don't think so,' she said coldly and irresolutely.

'Won't you? Yes do. Come and see the rooms as well. Do come.'

CHAPTER XII.

CARPETING

He set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she
would not have stayed away, either.

'We know each other well, you and I, already,' he said. She did not
answer.

In the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer's wife was
talking shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she
in a glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the
room; whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang
at the top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small
square window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful
beam, filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon
shrilled against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and
triumphant, and the woman's voice went up and up against them, and the
birds replied with wild animation.

'Here's Rupert!' shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was
suffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear.

'O-o-h them birds, they won't let you speak--!' shrilled the labourer's
wife in disgust. 'I'll cover them up.'

And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a
table-cloth over the cages of the birds.

'Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,' she said,
still in a voice that was too high.

The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange
funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant