Six weeks had gone by since that exciting 31st of October; six wonderful weeks for Joey. Weeks when extraordinary things happened; among others a day in town with Colonel Sturt (who wasn't gruff at all) and with Cousin Greta, when she was taken to the War Office to answer the keen, interested questions of a couple of splendid-looking staff officers, who were very kind to her, and promised that the business of searching for her father should be put in hand without a second's delay. They shook hands with Joey, and congratulated her when they had finished. She went to lunch at the Ritz afterwards, feeling deliriously happy, and much older. The only bar to her perfect bliss was the fact that she might not tell Mums about that wonderful hope forthwith. Cousin Greta said it would be cruel, until the hope was a certainty, and Cousin Greta had been so wonderfully kind and understanding of late that Joey felt sure she must be right. Still not even the lovely little gold wrist-watch bracelet which her cousin chose for her in Bond Street, when lunch was over, could make up for having to keep silence to Mums. It was a better consolation when Lady Greta said she was going to ask Mums down for the "Old Girls' Day" at the end of the term, so that Joey could show her the school and her friends, and they could travel back to Scotland together. Joey thought it would be a particularly pleasant thing to show the school to Mums just now, when everyone was being so extraordinarily nice to her. Even Ingrid Latimer and her friend Joan Chichester, that big Sixth Former who had put Joey on the table the day that she and Gabby and Noreen were going to meet Miss Craigie, condescended to a good deal of notice. Joey felt her cup of pride would brim over if she could bring Mums up to these majestic people and say, carelessly, "I'd like you to know my mother," as she had heard Joan Chichester do when her people came down at Mid-term. Of course, in old days it would have been unheard-of cheek for any member of the Lower School, except for Gabrielle, who breakfasted with Miss Conyngham when school matters needed attention, and could say, "I say, Ingrid, oughtn't we...." It was that "we" which was so wonderful, really; much more so than breakfasting with the Head! Still, for all she was a mere Remover II. B girl, Ingrid had been most uncommonly gracious since the flood; Joey thought that one might perhaps risk an introduction, and thanked Cousin Greta warmly. Cousin Greta patted her hand. "And I hope you will have a little welcome to spare for your old cousin too, my dear; for I want to come too, and to bring Gracie as well as John." "Oh, are you coming? How topping!" Joey cried, and the remark was quite truthful as far as Cousin Greta and John were concerned, though Joey wasn't quite sure how she felt about Gracie. And then Cousin Greta said something so astounding that it took her breath away.