Dennis himself had no doubts at all as he ran across the rick-yard to the farmhouse. Mr Solace was so good-natured, he was always ready to do what he was asked, and Dennis knew quite well that he and Maisie were favourites. He felt still more anxious now that Tuvvy should not be sent away, for since this talk with him, he seemed to have taken his affairs under his protection. Tuvvy seemed to belong to him, and to depend on him for help and advice, and Dennis was determined to do his very best for him. So it was with a feeling of great importance that he entered the housekeeper's room, where he was told that he should find Mrs Solace and his sister. They were both there, and both very busy, for Mrs Solace was making meat-pies, and Maisie, covered from head to foot with a big white apron, was learning how to roll out paste. "Did you want to see Andrew _particularly_, my dear?" asked Mrs Solace. "Fact is, he's in the office, over his accounts, and don't want to be disturbed. If it's a message from Miss Chester, you could leave it with me, couldn't you? and I'll be sure he has it." "It isn't a message from Aunt Katharine," said Dennis. "It's something I _must_ say myself; something very important, indeed. Maisie knows it is," he added, as Mrs Solace still hesitated. She looked at the children with some perplexity in her good-humoured face. She did not want to disturb Andrew just now, whose temper was seldom ruffled except when he was at his accounts. On the other hand, Dennis and Maisie were both fixing such imploring eyes upon her that she could not bear to say "No." "Well, then," she said, "you must just go and knock at the door and ask if you may go in. But _don't_ ye stay long, my dear, else Andrew'll be vexed, and it's I who'll bear the blame." The office, where Mr Solace had retired to struggle with his accounts, was not a very business-like apartment. It was a small room with a door opening into the stable-yard, full of a great variety of articles, such as boots, whips, guns, walking-sticks, and pipes. In the window there was a big writing-table, covered with account-books and papers, and it was here that the farm men came to be paid on Saturday night. From his seat Mr Solace could see all that went on in the stable-yard, and could shout out orders to the men as they passed across it without leaving his chair. That was in summer, but now the window was shut and the room was quite full of the fumes of Mr Solace's pipe, from which he was puffing angry clouds of tobacco, as he frowned over a great leather-bound book in front of him.