It had been arranged that her husband would follow her to town; but instead of doing this, he managed to contract a very bad cold, and as he was not the strongest man in the world, his wife took alarm, and departed in a hurry for Yelverton, notwithstanding all Camilla's entreaties. "But remember," Mrs. Brenton said as she went, "you have promised to come to me for Christmas; that is understood, Camilla. It will be delightful to have the children, and we must have a Christmas-tree and a jolly time altogether." "I am not sure that I shall know you in the future," replied Camilla; then she laughed. "I don't know why I want you so much, because you are always scolding me--aren't you? But I _do_ want you, and I think it is horrid of you to go rushing back now, just because Dick has happened to sneeze twice. If he had come up to town, we could have all nursed him." Caroline saw the children's mother only intermittently during the next two or three days. Camilla always seemed to be in a tremendous hurry. Except for breakfast, she did not have a single meal in the house. Nevertheless, the atmosphere was charged with a certain sort of excitement. The telephone bell was always ringing; so was the door-bell. Mrs. Lancing's friends seemed to employ an army of telegraph boys, and she herself would dash home in cabs every now and then in a violent hurry apparently. Though she might neglect or postpone other duties, she never forgot a flying visit to the nursery at bath-time. The clamour of the children, however, and the nonsense and the kisses, precluded anything further than the interchange of smiles and a few words between Mrs. Lancing and her new governess. It was Dennis who reported that Miss Graniger had settled down to her work admirably; that she was a decided acquisition. "You've never had any one near so nice, ma'am," was Dennis's opinion, given emphatically. "She doesn't give herself airs, and isn't above doing all sorts of little things that nurse would never have dreamed of doing; and the way she understands children--well, there, it gets over me! Miss Betty was in one of her tantrums this morning, but Miss Graniger, she soon set things right. I'd 'ope, ma'am," Dennis added, "that there'll be no change this time...." "I never want to change, you know that," Camilla's answer was to this. She found time to scribble a few words, conveying what Dennis had told her, to Agnes Brenton, and added-- "As the great Mogul has never taken any notice of us since you left town, we are left conjecturing whether he is indifferent or annoyed." Just when she was closing this letter Camilla took out the paper again and wrote a postscript.