Presently Farrell spoke again, quite in his usual voice. 'I shall be in despair if you leave me to tackle Cicely alone. She's been perfectly mad lately. But you can put it all right if you choose.' Nelly was startled into turning back towards him. 'Oh!--how can I?' 'Tell her she has been behaving abominably, and making a good fellow's life a burden to him. Scold her! Laugh at her!' 'What has she been doing?' said Nelly, still standing by the window. Farrell launched into a racy and elaborate account--the effort of one determined, _coûte que coûte_, to bring the conversation back to an ordinary key--of Cicely's proceedings, during the ten days since Nelly had seen her. It appeared that Marsworth, after many weeks during which they had heard nothing of him, had been driven north again to his Carton doctor, by a return of neuralgic trouble in his wounded arm; and as usual had put up at the Rectory, where as usual Miss Daisy, the Rector's granddaughter, had ministered to him like the kind little brick she was. 'You see, she's altogether too good to be true!' said Farrell. 'And yet it is true. She looks after her grandfather and the parish. She runs the Sunday school, and all the big boys are in love with her. She does V.A.D. work at the hospital. She spends nothing on her dress. She's probably up at six every morning. And all the time, instead of being plain, which of course virtue ought to be, she's as pretty as possible--like a little bird. And Cicely can't abide her. I don't know whether she's in love with Marsworth. Probably she is. Why not? At any rate, whenever Marsworth and Cicely fall out, which they do every day--Cicely has the vile habit--of course you know!--of visiting Marsworth's sins upon little Daisy Stewart. I understood she was guilty of some enormity at the Red Cross sale in the village last week. Marsworth was shocked, and had it out with her. Consequently they haven't been on speaking terms for days.' 'What shall we do with them to-morrow?' cried Nelly in alarm, coming to sit down again by the fire and taking up her knitting. How strange it was--after that moment of tempestuous emotion--to have fallen back within a few minutes into this familiar, intimate chat! Her pulse was still rushing. She knew that something irrevocable had happened, and that when she was alone, she must face it. And meanwhile here she sat knitting!--and trying to help him with Cicely as usual! 'Oh, and to-morrow!'--said Farrell with amusement, 'the fat will indeed be in the fire.' And he revealed the fact that on his way through Grasmere he had fallen in with the Stewarts. The old man had been suffering from bronchitis, and the two had come for a few days' change to some cousins at Grasmere. 'And the old man's a bit of a collector and wants to see the Turners. He knows Carton by heart. So I had to ask them to come up to-morrow--and there it is!--Cicely will find them in possession, with Marsworth in attendance!'