"--were going to tifin at major hirsts little girls one is called marjorie and were great friends----" "Where's the other page got to? It was here----" She found the other page, and continued the reading of the child's letter. Suddenly Lady Tasker interrupted her. "Had Jack to borrow money to send them up there?" "To Murree? I really don't know. Perhaps he had. But as adjutant of the Railway Volunteers he'd have his saloon." "H'm!... Anyway, the child oughtn't to be there at all. India's no place for children." "I know, auntie; but what can one do? They do come." "H'm!... They didn't to me. Thank goodness I've done with love and babies." (Dorothy laughed, perhaps at a mental vision of the houses in Ludlow and Cromwell Gardens.) "Anyway, now they are here somebody's got to look after them. They may as well be healthy...." She mused, and Dorothy reached for other letters. Lady Tasker's additions to her responsibilities usually began in this way. Dorothy had very little doubt that presently little Dot also would be handed like a parcel to some man or other coming home on leave, and Lady Tasker would send to the makers for yet another cot.... Therefore, pushing aside her last letter, she exclaimed almost crossly, "I _do_ think it's selfish of Aunt Eliza! There she is, with Spurrs all to herself, and she never once thinks that Jack might like to send Dot to England!" "Neither would I if I had my time over again," said Lady Tasker resolutely. "You needn't look like that--I wouldn't. Cromwell Gardens is past praying for, and in another year there won't be a stick at the Brear that's fit to be seen. The next batch I certainly intend to charge for. I'm on the brink of the poorhouse as it is." This time it was Dorothy who mused. She was a calculating young woman; the wife of His Impudence had to be; and she was far too shrewd to suppose for a moment that her aunt could ever escape her destiny, which was to be imposed upon by her own flesh and blood while hardening her heart against the rest of the world. Dorothy, and not Stan, had had to keep that flat going, and the flat before it; unless Fortune & Brooks turned up trumps--a rather remote contingency--she would have to continue to do so; and she was quite casuistical enough to argue that, while Aunt Eliza might keep her old Spurrs, Aunt Grace might properly be victimized because Dorothy loved Aunt Grace. Therefore there were musings in Dorothy's wide-angle blue eyes ... musings that only the sound of a key in the outer lock interrupted. "Hallo, that's His Impudence," Dorothy exclaimed. "I do hope he hasn't brought anybody. I shall simply rush out if he has."