"There isn't," Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick's footsteps, were looking at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline's expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most intimate friends were doomed to failure. "There isn't any dinner yet," Nancy corrected herself, "but you go up to my place, Dick, and get Hitty. Tell her she's got to cook dinner for this restaurant to-night. She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have _carte blanche_ in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects her ingredients. She won't let anybody do the marketing for her." "All right," Dick said, "I'll do my best." "You'll have to do more than that," Betty laughed as he started off, "but you're perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going, but still recognizable and answering to her name." Betty always enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since Caroline always suffered so much in the process. "And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt," Nancy supplemented. "_Enchanté_," the little girl said, "I mean, I am very pleased to meet you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with Miss Dear." "It seems to be settled," her father said, shrugging. "Would you mind it so very much?" Nancy asked. "I wouldn't mind it at all," Collier Pratt said. "I think it would be a delightful arrangement,--if I'm to take you seriously." "Nancy is always to be taken seriously," Betty put in. "What she really wants of the child is to use her for dietetic experiment, I'm sure." "That's what she's used to, poor child," Collier Pratt said ruefully. The removal of Gaspard created a diversion. Nancy took Sheila in to bid him good-by, and the great creature was so touched by the farewell kiss that she imprinted on his forehead, and the revelation of the fact that a fellow being had been suffering kindred throes in the chamber just beyond his own that he was of two minds about letting himself be moved at all from her proximity. A group of waitresses collected on the second landing, and Nancy and her friends stood together at the head of the stairs while the white-coated intern from the hospital rolled his great bulk upon a fragile-looking stretcher, and with the assistance of all the male talent in the establishment, managed to head him down the stairs, and so on across the court and into the waiting ambulance. Nancy's eyes filled with inexplicable tears, and she caught Collier Pratt regarding them with some amusement.