"What does it matter what Hughie thinks?" said Adrian, feeling a little injured. Hughie ate gooseberries and spoke not, but he wondered what they would say if they knew what he knew! However, matters got worse instead of better. Mrs. Romilly came back sooner than they expected; she had not had lunch at Crown Hill, she had declined it saying she must go home. However, she would not eat, but went off to the drawing-room with Crow and Adrian. Hughie took the opportunity to collect food for Pamela. Tartlets, cake, and a tempting little veal pie from the sideboard. Laden with this he retired upstairs and entered Pamela’s room again with difficulty, putting the plate on the floor while he opened the door. "There was mince, and gooseberry pie as well, Pam," he said, setting the plate down on the bed, "but I couldn’t bring it, because it was loose, these things are hard--it’s rather a comfort there was some hard stuff about--but, any way, Jeepy would give me some." "Jeepy" was Mrs. Jeep--cook, house-keeper, and adorer-in-chief amongst Hughie’s train of admirers. "That child’s intelleck is beyond telling," was a favourite assertion of Mrs. Jeep’s, and one with a good deal of truth in it. The servants had, of course, picked up the rumour of strange behaviour on the part of Miss Pamela, and Keziah, keeping Patty out of it, of course, with sharp injunctions about "little pitchers" and "long ears", had whispered to Mrs. Jeep that there certainly was something in it. "Times and times," asserted Keziah, "I’ve seen her lately. Well, out of my window one night; she was going along the terrace, here near eleven and after. I must say it’s not pretty behaviour. And I’m not the only one neither. When I went up to Badger’s for eggs, he said to me: ’One of your young ladies seems to take her walks abroad.’ ’Well, Mr. Badger,’ I said, ’and why not? I suppose the country is made for walks. I’m walking myself,’ I said, ’and so are you.’ I said----" she stopped, breathless. "Glad you was brief with him," said Mrs. Jeep in a slow comfortable voice, "I don’t hold with such folks being so free with gentry’s names. They ought to know better, but there’s a many don’t know their places these times. The mistress is put out though; upset she is, and I don’t like to see it, for you never see no bad feeling nor goings on in this house--nice children they are, and have been from babies--the lot of them. Mr. Malcolm just such another as Master Hughie, very inventive in his ways, always some notion in his head." There was sympathy and curiosity too in the kitchen, though Patty Inglis the between-maid was allowed to ask no questions, and sharply reprimanded by Mrs. Jeep and Keziah for the least appearance of interest.