"Inconvenient!" cried Faith, scornfully, "as though it could be! You ought to be in it by this time, though. Come along at once, or a nice cold you will have, and while you are bathing we will get the bed made, and all the hot-water bottles and hot bricks and things we can find, to put in it!" "Thank you, but don't cook me," groaned Irene. "When I have had my bath I shall be so hot, I shall be able to warm the bottles instead of the bottles warming me." Audrey hurried away to begin the preparations, though she had very little idea of what to do. She wanted to be alone, and busy, to try and work off her vexation. Why could not she have welcomed poor bruised, hurt Irene, as Faith had done! She had followed her mood of the moment, thinking only of herself, and she had made an impression, left a feeling, that she would never now be able to wipe away. Oh, it was unendurable to feel so mean, so unlovable, when--when she really did not mean to be either, when she wanted to be so different! At the door of the spare bedroom she turned, and walked swiftly down the stairs again to the dining-room. "Irene," she said, her voice trembling a little with shyness at her first effort, "I think my nightdresses would fit you best. Would you like a nun's veiling one, or a cotton? I will get one aired by the time you are ready for it." Faith looked at her sister admiringly, almost enviously. She would have found it very difficult to have provided Irene with the necessary garment, for she had but three to her name, and all were more or less buttonless and torn. If the younger Carlyles had nightgowns enough to go round, they thought themselves fortunate; to have different ones for summer and winter was a luxury they never dreamed of. "Oh--and, Audrey," Faith cried eagerly, "do lend Irene your pretty dressing-gown too." "I was going to," responded Audrey stiffly--Faith never gave one a chance to be gracious--"if you had given me----" She drew herself up sharply, with a genuine effort to master her vexation. "I will run up and see about getting the bath ready," said Faith. "It won't take more than ten minutes. Irene, use my room if you will, until your own is ready. Audrey, you will help her to take off her wet boots and stockings, won't you? I'll call Mary to come and make the bed." Within an hour Irene lay in the bed, rolled up in a blanket, with a hot-water bottle at her back, and a hot brick at her feet, for, after all, there was only one bottle in the house that did not leak, and that was Audrey's. She was very hot, but she felt revived and cheerful. Faith came into the room with a cup of steaming tea, and some bread-and-butter on a tray. She had profited by Audrey's example sufficiently to remember to put a tray-cloth over it, and to try to make it look dainty. Irene turned a hot but grateful face towards her. "How good you all are to me!" she said.