Outside the door, as he went out, I heard Brown say, ’Can’t you sleep, sir,’ and then something about ’no dressing-gown with that cold on you.’ ’Oh, dry up,’ said Ross wrathfully, really trying to be different, ’you’re as bad as a wet nurse. Go to bed and stop there, or I’ll sack you, Sam.’ So I knew Brown was forgiven, too. When I woke up next time it was getting light. I fumbled for my watch. It said the hour was twelve, so I knew it must be seven, or it might be eight—the hour hand will slip round, though I can always tell the minutes, which is what one usually wants to know. Then there was a knock upon my door. ’This,’ I thought, ’is my repentant brother. Now, after last night, I must remember to be firm, but kind, and so help him to be different,’ and I called ’Come in.’ But an icicle in shirt sleeves entered that I’d seen several times before. ’Meg,’ it said, ’you’re not to get up.’ ’My dear sir,’ I said to it (telling myself that I was not afraid of icicles), ’I hadn’t the slightest intention of doing such a thing for at least an hour.’ ’Not all day,’ said the icicle, and as I opened my lips, intending to be firm, but kind, it said in a voice cold as a glacier just before the dawn, ’Don’t argue, it’s quite settled, Margaret.’ ’But,’ I objected, assuring myself again that firm kindness was the _only_ way with icicles, ’you’ve got exactly the same cold, and you’re up. Sauce for a goose ought to be sauce for a gander.’ Suddenly a rapid thaw set in and the icicle subsided into a mere puddle on the floor, and my brother answered, ’Sauce _from_ a goose is all I know about,’ and there we left it. *CHAPTER VIII* It took two days to drown that kitten, but now I’m up again and out, and to-day I went to Tarnley, with the permission of my gracious keeper, ’if I drove both there and back.’ As it was sunny, and mercies are strictly rationed just at present, I accepted the offer and went to all the places I had meant to go to first, did a lot of shopping, and finally interviewed one of the house agents. I was quite clear and definite in my requirements—I wanted to _buy_ an _old_ house; so of course every one he sent me to was _red brick_, _modern_, and _to let_. I went home and groused to Ross, and announced that the only really satisfactory way to find a suitable dwelling was to walk the length and breadth of England, and when you saw the house you wanted knock at the door and beguile the owner into selling it to you, and that I intended to adopt this plan and to begin my pilgrimage shortly. Ross, as usual, was rude about it. ’Haven’t you discovered all these years, you little ass, that agents are a race apart?’ said he; ’their minds are controlled by the law of opposites. Now your heart, Meg, is set on a house, ancient and mellowed with years, with long, low rooms and beams, and an old-world garden full of wallflowers, phlox and herbs and perennials and——’ ’But, Ross——’