Audrey made no reply to this. Mrs. Blake was charming, but she was certainly a little erratic in her habits. No wonder there was so little comfort in the house when the mistress disliked early rising. Mollie seemed to take it as a matter of course; besides, she was too much absorbed in the flowers to notice Miss Ross's reproving silence. She rushed off to find a jug of water, and Audrey turned into the dining-room, which presented the same aspect of confusion that it had worn yesterday. Kester was on his knees trying to unpack a hamper of books. It cost him a painful effort to rise, and he looked so pale and exhausted that Audrey at once took him in hand. 'My dear boy,' she said kindly, as she helped him to the sofa, 'how very imprudent! You have no right to try your strength in that way. How could Mollie let you touch those books!' 'She has everything to do, and I wished to help her,' he returned, panting with the exertion. 'Cyril wants his books so badly, and he has put up the bookcase, you see. He did that this morning--he had scarcely time to eat his breakfast--and then he asked Mollie if she would unpack the books.' 'I will help Mollie,' returned Audrey, laying aside her hat. 'Now, Kester, I want to ask you a favour. You will only be in our way here. Will you please take possession of that nice hammock-chair that someone has put outside the window? and we will just fly round, as the Yankee domestics say.' Audrey spoke with such good-natured decision, with such assurance of being obeyed, that Kester did not even venture on a grumbling remonstrance--the poor fellow was too much accustomed to be set on one side, and to be told that he was no use. But Audrey had no intention of leaving him in idleness. 'By and by, when the room is a little clearer, you can be of the greatest help to us; for you can sit at the table and dust the books in readiness for us to arrange.' And Kester's face brightened up at that. Audrey was quite in her element. As she often told her mother, she was robust enough for a housemaid. The well-ordered establishment at Woodcote, with its staff of trained domestics and its excellent matron, afforded little scope for her youthful activities. Mrs. Ross was her own housekeeper, and though she had contentedly relinquished her duties to Geraldine for the last few years, she had not yet offered to transfer them to Audrey.