"Of course I will advise you, Miss Graniger, and I shall be only too glad to help you if I can. Just tell me what you think you could do. What would you like to do?" Mrs. Brenton asked, going straight to the point in her practical way. "It is difficult," said Caroline Graniger, "for I don't quite know what I can do. I have no accomplishments. I adore music, but I was never taught a note. Music was an extra, and I was a charity girl. I can read and write, and do a little arithmetic; I can sew, and I can dig," she finished with another smile. "I am really quite a good gardener," she said. "Whatever I do, I want, if possible, to be somewhere where there is a garden, or at any rate where I can see grass and some trees. The oppression of bricks and mortar is a great sufferance to me! Mrs. Baynhurst's house is built in by other houses; the rooms are so dreary. There is no air, and the windows are never open, and I never got out. I used to drive with her occasionally, but I never walked." Agnes Brenton fretted her brows into a slight frown. "Do you like children?" she asked, after a little pause. The thin, sallow face lit up. "Children, yes, I love children. I was a pupil-teacher two years before I left school. There were some quite tiny tots with Miss Beamish. She had a large Indian connection, and also children from all parts of the world. When I left there were two dear little souls there from Barbados. I cried at leaving them," she sighed, "and I don't often cry," she said. Mrs. Brenton went on eating her breakfast, and Caroline Graniger relapsed into silence for a moment. Then, with a rush of colour to her cheeks, she said-- "But please don't let me bother you in any way, Mrs. Brenton. You have been already much too good. I dare say Mr. Haverford will arrange something for me." Agnes Brenton was about to answer this with some kindly words when they were startled by a sharp rap with a stick on the door, and then the door was opened and Camilla presented herself. She was in a riding-habit, and looked slim and boyish and radiant, and extraordinarily pretty and young. "Oh, you lazy Agnes," she said, "not finished breakfast yet! Look at the time--nearly ten minutes past ten, and I have been out since half-past eight." She bent to kiss Mrs. Brenton, and then gave Caroline a smile and a little nod, as Agnes Brenton hurriedly introduced them. "Give me something to eat, for the Lord's sake! I am positively famished," she declared. She threw off her riding-gloves and tossed them, with her stick and her hat, on to the couch. "Didn't you have anything before you went out?" asked Mrs. Brenton. "Good heavens, no!" said Camilla. She stood in front of the looking-glass and ruffled her hair becomingly. "Sammy sent word at eight o'clock that he was coming at half-past eight. He made Dennis wake me up. There was no time for anything except a bath, and how I tumbled into these things _I_ don't know."