And now the evening time has come. The house is finished, the last picture is up, the last curtain hung, and all the dear domestic gods arranged. Alas! the fly in the ointment has turned up also. The staff has arrived, and I am terrified of it. I feel all awash inside to think that I have to order the dinner in the morning and tell the S.P. what her work is. However, ’sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.’ Tired, but happy, I wandered into the scented garden in the dusk to gather great branches of white and purple lilac, armfuls of forget-me-not and fragrant pheasant eye and the very early honeysuckle that grows over the porch. Then I filled every vase and pot that could be induced to hold water, and some that couldn’t, Ross says, because I stood a leaky jar on his dressing-table and the water trickled into the drawer beneath and reduced the contents to pulp. The house is so sweet, filled with the spring, but if only I had decorated all the rooms for Michael! My heart goes out to him to-night with a great longing. The rooms are full of the peace and fragrance only found in old houses, yet, dear as it is, it can never be to me anything more than a house till he comes and transforms it into _Home_. *CHAPTER XVII* I think ’The Staff’ might be worse, though it could not be more alarming. Dulcie cooks beautifully, only she won’t cook enough of anything, and the S.P. is very superior, quite appallingly so. She does her work well, but she despises me. I try to like her, but it is difficult to feel any affection for a person who looks as if you were a bad smell under her nose. She has always lived with such exclusive families that I cannot think she will stay very long with us. Her last place was a failure, she only stayed a month. ’After I got there,’ she explained, ’I found the mistress was not a lady.’ ’How did you know?’ I inquired politely. ’Oh, she never dressed for dinner, put the coals on with her fingers, and had tea in the dining-room. (By a merciful dispensation we have ours in the hall.) ’I was most uncomfortable,’ she added, ’but I liked him. He was a real gentleman, his underclothing was all made of silk.’ ’My ’Ilda’ needs a great deal of polishing. At lunch the S.P. teaches her to wait at table, but it is a daily martyrdom for any one so perfectly genteel, so unutterably refined! Monica turned up yesterday, unexpectedly, in a motor-car. She stayed ten minutes and then dashed back to her hospital. ’Oh, Meg!’ she laughed as she came in, ’why didn’t you tell me the truth years ago? What an utter little fool I’ve always been, but I’ve found out that I love him after all.’ ’Well, you’d better write and tell him so,’ I said, and kissed her. ’I have,’ she answered, blushing like a wild rose. ’Aren’t I a bold, bad girl? Aren’t modern women hussies? I’m so longing for his letter, Meg. Oh, you were funny! I’m not a bit patrician, am I? I adore cement!’ Dear old Monica!