Then the door banged, and Kitty went stalking home, to drown her woes in afternoon tea, and to have her ruffled feathers smoothed down by her mother's kindly sympathy. Mrs Maitland regarded the disappointment from a personal standpoint, for the discovery that there was no Mrs Vanburgh was almost as great a blow to her as the absence of daughters had been to the schoolroom party. She agreed with Kitty that it was most officious of a solitary male to monopolise the Grange, and bemoaned the loss to the neighbourhood in a manner tragic enough to satisfy even her daughter's requirements. "Oh dear! oh dear! and I was looking to her for so many subscriptions! I had put her down for two five-pound notes, and half a dozen guineas. I meant her to take half my stall at the hospital bazaar, and to be the secretary of the Mission. How useful I had made that woman, to be sure! and now she has vanished into thin air before my eyes. I'm terribly disappointed, Kit; but we must make the best of it. Poor, lonely old man! He will be bored to death in that silent house. Lies on his back, you say, and is wheeled about in a chair? That means paralysis, I suppose, or very bad rheumatism. It's sad to be old, and ill, and lonely." Mrs Maitland stared thoughtfully before her, cup in hand, and her eyes grew suddenly moist. She was thinking how blessedly well off she was in her cheery, sunny little home, with husband and child to love her, and good health to enable her to do her work, and to find pleasure in the doing; and the picture of the strange old man lying on his couch in the dim oak-panelled halls seemed by comparison gloomier than ever. "We'll help him, Kit!" she said briskly. "We'll help him, you and I! We'll make his life brighter for him, and cheer him in every way we know!" But, as it turned out, Mr Vanburgh was not anxious to be cheered, and Mrs Maitland found it more difficult than she expected to put her good resolves into practice. CHAPTER NINE. NED'S MISSION. On Thursday evening, Mr and Mrs Rendell returned home from their Continental trip. The house was spick and span, the girls were blooming in pretty evening dresses, and the travellers themselves looked immensely benefited by their holiday, so that the kissings and huggings of welcome were exchanged under the happiest conditions. Nan was thankful to feel that no shade of displeasure lurked behind the tenderness of her mother's greeting, and before the evening was over actually screwed up courage to put a question concerning the discovery of the scattered rice. The explanation was disappointingly simple. Mr and Mrs Rendell exchanged a smiling glance, and appeared much amused by the girls' discomfiture.