Here he winked at Agnes, and she winked back at him, thinking herself exceedingly witty. Games were proposed, and games were begun; but, alas! how could seven young people keep absolutely quiet? I was trembling all over. If father were but to come down and see the absolute riot in the parlour, I didn't know what would happen. I was certain of one thing: neither Rita nor Agnes would ever be allowed to have tea with me again. After a time I did a very injudicious thing. I left the room. I ran upstairs. I listened outside father's room and heard him moving about. I knocked, and immediately the door was flung open, and there was father in his dressing-gown, with his beautiful grey hair pushed back off his forehead. "What's all that murmuring and muttering and shuffling that is going on downstairs?" he said. "And how flushed your cheeks are! And there is a smear of jam on one of them. What have you been doing?" "Having tea, father." "You never offered me a cup." "Oh father! when you first came in I offered to get you some." "Well, I'd like some now. Bring me up something to eat." "Then, father darling, is your head better?" "Yes, my dear, yes. Go downstairs and bring me up a tray full of food-- toast and an egg and some tea. Bring them up with your own hands. See there isn't a sound. If I have two or three hours of quiet I shall be quite fit to resume my work to-night. I have to lecture in Hall at nine o'clock this evening. I shall not be able to utter a word if this headache continues. Now, Rachel, be off; set to work and get me some food at once, as fast as ever you can." I was half-way downstairs when my father's voice called after me: "Do stop all that whispering and whistling and noise. I can't imagine what is happening." "I will do what I can, father," I said. PART ONE, CHAPTER TWO. THE POACHED EGG. I returned to the boys and to my school friends. "Father is awake," I said, "and he complains of the noise we are making." "Noise?" cried Alex. "Why, we are as mum as mice!" "People must breathe, you know," said Agnes in what I considered a very impertinent way. I stared at her. She had no right to speak like that of my father, the great Professor Grant; for my father was a member of the Royal Society, no less, and you can imagine that to hear such talk from a silly little girl like Agnes Swan was, to say the least of it, disagreeable. So I drew myself up; but then I caught Von Marlo's eyes, and I felt soothed, for he seemed to understand. "If the Professor wishes it," he said, "we will, of course, hardly speak at all.--It might be best," he added, turning to Alex, "if we all went away. What do you think?" "Please yourself, Von," said Alex, speaking in a very patronising way, and flinging himself back in a deep chair. "Squibs and Charley and I stay; and as you are the quietest of the party, and inclined to patronise Dumps, I don't see why you should go." Von Marlo came straight up to me and said: