he real poetry of cooking. I'm sure you have the
right sort of soul!"

Norah looked embarrassed.

"Jim says I've no soul beyond mustering cattle," she said, laughing.
"We'll prove him wrong, some day, Miss de Lisle, shall we? Now I must
go: the motor will be back presently." She turned, suddenly conscious
of a baleful glance.

"Oh!--Mrs. Atkins!" she said feebly.

"I came," said Mrs. Atkins stonily, "to see if any help was needed in
the kitchen. Perhaps, as you are here, miss, you would be so good as
to ask the cook?"

"Oh--nothing, thank you," said Miss de Lisle airily, over her
shoulder. Mrs. Atkins sniffed, and withdrew.

"That's done it, hasn't it?" said the cook-lady. "Well, don't worry,
my dear; I'll see you through anything."

A white-capped head peeped in.

"'Tis yersilf has all the luck of the place, Katty O'Gorman!" said
Bride enviously. "An' that Sarah won't give me so much as a look-in,
above: if it was to turn down the beds, itself, it's as much as she'll
do to let me. Could I give you a hand here at all, Miss de Lisle?
God help us, there's Miss Norah!"

"If 'tis the way you'd but let her baste the turkey for a minyit,
she'd go upstairs reshted in hersilf," said Katty in a loud whisper.
"The creature's destroyed with bein' out of all the fun."

"Oh, come in--if you're not afraid of Mrs. Atkins," said Miss de
Lisle. Norah had a vision of Bride, ecstatically grasping a
basting-ladle, as she made her own escape.

Allenby was just shutting the hall-door as she turned the corner. A
tall man in a big military greatcoat was shaking hands with her
father.

"Here's Captain Hardress, Norah."

Norah found herself looking up into a face that at the first glance
she thought one of the ugliest she had ever seen. Then the newcomer
smiled, and suddenly the ugliness seemed to vanish.

"It's too bad to take you by storm this way. But your brother
wouldn't hear of anything else."

"Of course not," said Mr. Linton. "My daughter was rather afraid you
might be a brigadier. She loses her nerve at the idea of pouring tea
for anything above a colonel."

"Indeed, a colonel's bad enough," said Norah ruefully. "I'm
accustomed to people with one or two stars: even three are rather
alarming!" She shot a glance at his shoulder, laughing.

"I'm sure you're not half as alarmed as I was at coming," said Captain
Hardress. "I've been so long in hospital that I've almost forgotten
how to speak to any on