'My dear, I will help you look for the teapot,' she said in the kindest voice possible. 'You are just tired to death, and of course it is natural that your mother should want her tea. If we cannot find it, I will run round and borrow one from the Wrights. Everyone knows what moving is--one has to undergo all sorts of discomforts. Let me put down my sunshade and lace scarf, and then you will see how useful I can be'; and Audrey walked into the house, leaving Mollie tongue-tied with astonishment, and marched into the dining-room, which certainly looked a chaos--with dusty chairs, tables, half-emptied hampers, books, pictures, all jumbled up together with no sort of arrangement, just as the men had deposited them from the vans. Here, however, she paused, slightly taken aback by the sight of another dark head, which raised itself over the sofa-cushions, while another pair of brown eyes regarded her with equal astonishment. 'It is only Kester,' whispered Mollie. 'I think he was asleep. Kester, Miss Ross kindly wishes to help us a little--but--did you ever see such a place?' speaking in a tone of disgust and shrugging her shoulders. 'Mollie can't be everywhere,' rejoined the boy, trying to drag himself off the sofa as he spoke, and then Audrey saw he was a cripple. He looked about fifteen, but his long, melancholy face had nothing boyish about it. The poor lad was evidently a chronic sufferer; there was a permanent look of ill-health stamped on his features, and the beautiful dark eyes had a plaintive look in them. 'Mollie does her best,' he went on almost irritably; 'but she and Cyril have been busy upstairs getting up the beds and that sort of thing, so they could not turn their hand to all this lumber,' kicking over some books as he spoke. 'Mollie is very young,' returned Audrey, feeling she must take them under her protection at once, and, as usual, acting on her impulse. 'Is your name Kester? What an uncommon name! but I like it somehow. I am so sorry to see you are an invalid, but you can get about a little on crutches?' 'Sometimes, not always, when my hip is bad,' was the brief response. 'Has it always been so?' in a pitying voice. 'Well, ever since I was a little chap, and Cyril dropped me. I don't know how it happened; he was not very big, either. It is so long ago that I never remember feeling like other fellows'; and Kester sighed impatiently and kicked over some more books. 'There I go, upsetting everything; but there is no room to move. We had our dinner, such as it was, in the kitchen--not that I could eat it, eh, Mollie?' Mollie shook her head sadly. 'You have not eaten a bit to-day. Cyril promised to bring in some buns for tea; but I daresay he will forget all about it.' A sudden thought struck Audrey: these two poor children did look so disconsolate. Mollie's tired face was quite dust-begrimed; she had been crying, too, probably with worry and over-fatigue, for the reddened eyelids betrayed her.