"Did ever I hear the like of that? It was a lump of beeswax, and I mistook it for cheese! It looked just like it--so smooth, and yellow, and hard--too hard, maybe--but I was blaming Mary for that, not the cheese, and thinking myself so good and economical to use it up! Beeswax and macaroni! Oh--oh--I'll never forget it while I live!" "It's a very pretty nose you've got, dear, but it's not much use to you, I'm afraid," said Jack teasingly. "Did it never occur to you one moment that it was rather highly scented, and the scent a little different from the ordinary common or garden cheese?" and Bridgie shook her head in solemn denial. "Never the ghost of a suspicion! It shows how easily our senses are deceived when we get a fixed idea in our heads; but indeed you were not much cleverer yourselves. Every man of you had something to say about the smell, but not a hint of what it was!" "I thought it was rather spring-cleaningey," Sylvia said mischievously. "Never mind, Bridgie dear--it has been a great success. I do feel so much at home--more so than I should have done after a dozen formal dinners where everything went right. I shall always remember it too, and how Mr Miles declared it was nice!" "Don't call him `Mr,' please! He is only seventeen, though he _is_ the champion eater of the world. I wonder what exactly is the effect of beeswax taken internally! You must tell us all about it, Miles, if you live to the morning!" "How pleased Pixie will be!" murmured Bridgie reflectively, leaving her hearers to decide whether she referred to Miles's problematical disease or the latest culinary disaster, and once again Sylvia admired the happy faculty of seizing on the humorous side of a misfortune which seemed to be possessed so universally by the O'Shaughnessy family. CHAPTER SEVEN. A HAPPY INSPIRATION. Mrs Geoffrey Hilliard stood in the long gallery of Knock Castle and drummed wearily on the window-pane with a white, heavily-ringed hand. It had rained for a whole week without stopping, and for the happiest girl in the world, as she proclaimed herself to be at least three times a day, she came perilously near feeling shedding tears of depression.