'He all but signed a codicil to his will last night! He's in a tearing hurry about it. He called in Miss Bremerton and wanted her to witness it. And she refused. So father threw it into a drawer, and nobody knows what has happened.' 'Miss Bremerton? The new secretary?' The tone expressed both amusement and curiosity. 'Ah! I hear all sorts of interesting things about her.' Pamela straightened her shoulders defiantly. 'Of course she's interesting. She's terribly clever and up to date, and all the rest of it. She's beginning to boss father, and very soon she'll boss all the rest of us.' 'Perhaps you wanted it!' said Captain Chicksands, smiling. 'Perhaps we did,' Pamela admitted. 'But one needn't like it all the same. Well, she's rationed us--that's one good thing--and father really doesn't guess! And now she's begun to take an interest in the farms! I believe she's walked over to the Holme Wood farm to-day, to see for herself what state it's in. Father's in town. And she's trying hard to keep father out of a horrible row with the County Committee.' 'About ploughing up the park?' Pamela nodded. 'Plucky woman!' said Arthur Chicksands heartily. 'I'm sure you help her, Pamela, all you can?' 'I don't like being managed,' said the girl stubbornly, rather resenting his tone. A slight shade of sternness crossed the soldier's face. 'You know it's no good playing with this war,' he said drily. 'It's as much to be won here as it is over seas. _Food_!--that'll be the last word for everybody. And it's women's work as much as men's.' She saw that she had jarred on him. But an odd jealousy--or perhaps her hidden disappointment--drove her on. 'Yes, but one doesn't like strangers interfering,' she said childishly. The soldier threw her a side-glance, while his lip twitched a little. So this was Pamela--grown-up. She seemed to him rather foolish--and very lovely. There was no doubt about that! She was going to be a beauty, and of a remarkable type. He himself was a strong, high-minded, capable fellow, with an instinctive interest in women, and a natural aptitude for making friends with them. He was inclined, always, to try and set them in the right way; to help them to some of the mental training which men got in a hundred ways, and women, as it seemed to him, were often so deplorably without. But this schoolmaster function only attracted him when there was opposition. He had been quite sincere in denouncing humility in women. It never failed to warn him off. 'Do you think she really wants to interfere?' he asked, smiling. 'I expect it's only that she's got a bit of an organizing gift--like the women who have been doing such fine things in the war.' 'There's no chance for me to do fine things in the war,' said Pamela bitterly. 'Take up the land, and see! Suppose you and Miss Bremerton could pull the estate together!' Pamela's eyes scoffed. 'Father would never let me. No, I think sometimes I shall run away!'