eep you as tight as that?" she flared.

But her friend was half-way down the steps by that time and did not
reply.

Lesbia, bursting into the dining-room at home, where her belated tea was
keeping warm under a cosy, found Minnie lying upon the sofa with a
handkerchief soaked in eau-de-Cologne laid across her forehead. She
jumped nervously at the noise, and listened with closed eyes as her
young stepsister-in-law poured forth her request.

"Oh, Lesbia! I can't possibly let you go this evening! It's Nurse's
night out, and I've got an overwhelming headache. Who's going to put the
children to bed?"

"Can't Mrs. Carter do it?" asked Lesbia, choking back something that
rose in her throat.

"I daren't ask her. When I engaged her she stipulated she was to have
nothing to do in the nursery. It's so difficult to get a cook nowadays,
that when you've found one you want to keep her."

"Can't Nurse stay in for once?"

"She'd give notice if I suggested it. You know she always goes to the
Cinema on Friday nights."

"Suppose _I_ ask her? Or Mrs. Carter?"

But at this point Paul, who had been sitting reading in the armchair,
suddenly rose and interfered.

"Nonsense, Lesbia!" he said. "You mustn't go upsetting the household.
And after all I'm not sure that I care about your visiting with these
Morwoods. We don't know them."

He lighted a cigarette, and strolled into the greenhouse to smoke it,
with an air of having settled the matter finally. Lesbia, drinking
rather stewed tea and cold buttered toast, kept silence, but black
rebellion raged in her heart. It was a Friday evening, and she had no
home lessons to prepare. It would have been so delightful to have spent
a few hours with the Morwoods. It was still only half-past five, and the
children did not begin to go to bed until half-past six. Suppose she ran
round to Marion's now, she could come back in time to give them their
baths. Even half an hour of fun would be better than nothing. She peeped
hurriedly into the nursery, where Julie, Steve, and Bunty were playing
with their toys, as good as gold, then, changing at lightning speed
into her best dress, she snatched up her waterproof, crammed on her hat,
and fled from the house. Marion welcomed her ecstatically. Several
friends, who had been rung up by telephone, had arrived, so there was
quite an impromptu little party. (Lesbia was immensely glad she had put
on her blue velveteen.) Carrie Turner and Cissie Hales represent