She came up to see me, and she proved to be a cheery soul, and perhaps the corners will rub off. I hope the superior parlourmaid won’t be too superior to take on the job of training her. In any case there does not seem to be another housemaid in the world, so my choice is somewhat limited. The staff, therefore, consists of the Titmouse, and the Stench for outside, and the Superior Person (commonly called the S.P.), the cook, who rejoices in the name of Dulcie, and ’my ’Ilda’ for the house. Nannie insists she can manage for me and all the nursery part, if ’my ’Ilda’ does the scrubbing. It has turned very cold again after the thaw, and the frost made everything exceedingly slippery, the roads are like glass. At dinner I said to Ross,— ’Aren’t the paths slippery? Positively I could hardly get home this afternoon; I took one step forward and slid back two.’ ’Do think, my dear,’ said Ross, ’do try to use your brains, if you have any. If you had really taken one forward and two back you’d have found yourself back at the station.’ ’I did, so took a taxi home, didn’t you hear me drive up?’ ’Humph,’ said Ross. (I don’t often get one in, do I?) I am going to keep chickens and rabbits, as the meat question is difficult, and cockerels and young bunnies will help to feed the family. I suggested a goat, but Ross is dead off that. He thinks the Stench _and_ a goat will be too much for the S.P. and Dulcie. I intend the Gidger to know all about animals and flowers and how they breed and propagate. Nature is beautiful and ignorance unlovely. So I shall not tell my little girl lies or half truths about sex, but shall unfold the facts of life gradually as she is able to bear them, so that her heart and mind may become as beautiful as her face promises to be. Then some day she may go to her husband, not in that awful state of ignorance, fright, and misery that some call ’innocence,’ but with a wide, sweet, sane knowledge of the beautiful mysteries of life. *CHAPTER XIII* Ross seems better. He is sleeping some hours each night without the bromide. I never heard how much of that Brown got him to take. When I inquired how the knee was, Sam said,— ’Keeps pretty level with the arm, miss—ma’am, I should say.’ Now what does he mean by that? There has been another thaw and everything is distinctly mucky, but yesterday, after lunch, I put on my shortest skirt and my oldest hat, the one with the pheasant wing in it that Michael likes, and we tramped over the dripping meadows to call on ’Uncle John.’ ’Aunt John’ opened the door. She was resplendent in black silk with a necklace of melon seeds and a pair of the most enormous pearl ear-rings, that even Cleopatra might have envied.