“The last time I was there the youngest child had croup. They were very anxious about him; indeed the doctor almost gave him up; though he managed to pull through in the end, and is quite strong now. Not that any of them are actually what you would call robust. They really take after Arthur, Mr. Jenkins that is, though Sissie, that’s my sister, always says _he’s_ stronger than he looks. I’m sure I hope so, for he looks wretched. The whole family, you know, the whole Jenkins family I mean, are vegetarians, and vegetarians, whatever they may feel, invariably _look_ ill. When I say that to Sissie she always gets cross, as if I could help it! But that’s what people are like. Arthur wants to bring up the children in the same way, which is silly, and, to my mind, trifling with their lives. Besides, it’s so difficult when you’ve only one maid who has to do everything: and they only give fourteen, and what can you get for fourteen nowadays, even in the country? You certainly can’t expect a girl like that to cook two dinners a day, because, you see, Sissie eats meat.” She stopped suddenly, as if she had lost the thread of her discourse. “We’re all going to a garden-party at Castlewellan. I’m just waiting for the others. Except Gerald――he won’t come. You’ll find him over there,”――she waved her left hand. “He’s put up a hammock and he’s been sleeping in it all day. He’s dreadfully lazy. He won’t even practise. And though he’s so polite and gentlemanly, I must say he’s really rather irritable: he got quite cross at lunch. I don’t think Katherine understands him. People with very artistic feelings, I’m sure, _are_ more easily annoyed than others. It’s not as if he were just an ordinary person like you or me.” Whether I was an ordinary person or not, I didn’t relish being told so, even by Miss Dick, and I decided, as I had frequently decided before, that she was a stupid creature, and that I didn’t like her. I left her referring to the epistle from Mrs. Arthur Jenkins, or Sissie, or whatever she was called, and went to look for Gerald. He had heard me coming, for when I found him he had swung himself out of his hammock and was standing beside it. “Are the others gone yet?” he asked. “They’re just starting. I only saw Miss Dick.” “They’re going to some party, thank the Lord!” “Yes; she told me.” A pause followed, for I didn’t know what to say, and he himself kept silence. What I had intended to do was to put him at his ease, to let him know that it was all right about last night, but my magnanimity and sympathy were evidently quite superfluous, and I was annoyed at this. We strolled back slowly to the house. “Wouldn’t it be rather a good time to play to me?” I said. “You promised to, and now we have the place to ourselves.” “If you like.” We entered by the open window, and pulling the sofa over beside it, I lay down in supreme laziness among a heap of coloured cushions. Gerald went at once to the piano.