’Did _I_ do it all right at dinner, Mrs Ellsley?’ he began, mimicking ’My ’Ilda.’ ’You look quite sweet in that cap and jacket, Meg.’ And then he added hastily, lest I should be puffed up with pride like Pau-Puk-Keewis, ’but I thought Michael had forbidden you to read in bed.’ ’He has, but I’m not reading, I’m just writing.’ ’Humph,’ said Ross, ’could I—would it—do you think it would offend him if I got Sam to—brush and—er sponge them, Meg? Goodness,’ he ejaculated, pulling out his watch, ’do you know what the time is?’ ’Twenty past,’ I said, looking at mine. ’Twenty past what?’ ’I don’t know, the hour hand slips round, but twenty past anything can’t be late; if it were five to, now, it might be different, Ross.’ ’Well, anyway, give me that pen, Meg. You’re not going to write another word, and I’ll have that watch mended to-morrow. Give it me.’ So I handed that over, too, and produced a pencil ’Well, I’m dashed,’ said Ross, and took that also. ’Oh, do let me finish my letter to Michael, Ross. The Titmouse posts it in the morning. I only want to write just one more thing.’ ’You may say,’ said Ross, handing it back, ’"I am a very disobedient wife, Michael."’ So I said, "I am a very disobedient wife, Michael, but I love you" (oh, he’s coming for the pencil), "love you—lo——"’ But, of course, I’ve got another pencil, one must be prepared for such emergencies, but the thing that really rankles is, if he ’lets me’—in _my_ house! In the silent watches of the night I have decided that if Sam does produce any improvement in the housekeeping I am going to find out how; surely my brain is as good as a man’s any day of the week. *CHAPTER XXI* I feel anxious about Monica. She hasn’t heard from Charlie. I saw her yesterday. She looked very tired, but wouldn’t say much—only, ’there’s hardly been time yet,’ which she knows as well as I do isn’t true. So I suppose something has gone wrong there. God doesn’t seem to like people to be happy lately. I haven’t heard from Michael either the last two days, but I try not to worry. Probably the posts are just hung up again. Mrs Williams is better, much less pain, and a little fatter, or perhaps it would be more correct to say, rather less thin. The nurse thinks she will be able to get up for a while to-morrow, and that she should go away for a change before her operation. While I was in the garden sowing seeds, Ross came out to me and said,— ’Meg, excuse me mentioning it, but how much do operations cost?’ ’It depends on how much they take out,’ I said. ’"Why, at one hoperation alone——"’ ’Margaret, if you would have the goodness to give me some idea of a figure, and not make me sick, I should be so obliged.’ I looked round wildly for ’some idea of a figure.’ The flower seed packet in my hand was numbered 207, so I said,—