back
to the car, feeling oddly cheered.

* * * * *

It was past five when Radmore and Timmy crept like burglars through one
of the back doors of Old Place. He sent the boy straight up to bed, but
he himself felt hopelessly wide awake, so he went out of doors again,
into Janet's delightful scented garden, and tramped up and down a bit to
get warm. Suddenly he knew that he was hungry. Why shouldn't he go into
the scullery and brew himself a cup of tea?

As he went into the kitchen, he saw on the table a kettle, a spirit
stove, a cup and saucer, tea caddy and teapot, even a thermos full of hot
water--everything ready to make an early cup of tea. He left the thermos
alone, and filled up the kettle at the scullery sink.

Radmore was still very much of an old campaigner. Still it was a long
time since he had made himself a cup of tea, and he became a little
impatient for the cold water took a long time to boil.

The kettle was just beginning to sing, when the door which led to the
flight of stairs connecting the scullery with the upper floors of the
house opened quietly, and Betty appeared--Betty, in a becoming blue
dressing-gown, which intensified the peachy clearness of her skin,
and the glint of pale gold in the shadowed fairness of her hair. Morning
was Betty's hour. As the day wore on, she was apt to become fagged and
worried, especially since Nanna's accident.

Just for a moment she looked very much taken aback, then she smiled,
"I've come down to make a cup of tea for Nanna."

"So I suppose, but _you_ must have a cup first. See, I'm making some for
you."

"Are you?" She tried not to show the surprise she felt.

"While you're having it, we'll make Nanna a cup of tea with the water in
the thermos there. But where's the milk?"

He saw her face from merry become sad. "I always save some milk for
Josephine," she said. "I'll go and get it now. But we mustn't use it all;
I must save some for that poor cat."

"You'll have to go a long way to give milk to Josephine," he observed.

She looked at him, startled, and going to the scullery door, glanced
quickly at the corner where stood the now empty basket.

"Where is she?" she exclaimed--and her whole face lightened. "Oh,
Godfrey, have you managed to hide her away?"

He nodded. "Yes, ever so many miles away, where no one will find her."

"What do you mean?" She could not conceal her astonishment--her
astonishment and her intense re