The rules of the nursing home were more strict than Lady Grant had expected, and, much to her indignation, permission to visit the patients was denied to Jasmine, who thereupon suggested that, since she could not be of any use in nursing her cousins, she ought to go and help Aunt Cuckoo with the illness of her adopted son. "And what about me?" demanded her aunt. "You seem to forget, my dear child, and your Aunt Cuckoo seems to forget, that I have a slight claim to consideration. As if the girls' illness was not enough, Cousin Edith must needs go and carelessly visit some friend of hers at Enfield and bring back with her a violent cold, so that what with her sniffling and sneezing and snuffling it's quite impossible to stay in the same room with her. So, at this moment of all others, I am left entirely at the mercy of the servants, who after all have quite enough work of their own to run the house properly, and really I'm afraid I cannot see why you should go to Aunt Cuckoo." It was thus that Jasmine found herself after what Aunt May now called her adventures of the last eighteen months in that very position which Aunt May had no doubt arranged in her mind when she first wrote and insisted on her niece's leaving Sirene and coming to England. Cousin Edith's cold, which Jasmine had to admit was one of the most aggressive, the most persistent, the most maddening colds she had ever listened to, was ascribed by Aunt May to the London climate in winter, and as soon as Jasmine was fairly at work on her aunt's correspondence, Cousin Edith was sent away to recuperate in Bognor, where it was generally understood at 317, Harley Street she would remain for the rest of her life. If anything more than the cold had been needed to confirm Aunt May in her resolve to get rid of Cousin Edith, it was the death of Spot. "So long as poor old Spot was alive," she said to Jasmine, "I never liked to send poor Edith away. The poor old dog was very devoted to her, and I'm bound to say that poor Edith with all her faults was very devoted to dear old Spot. But Spot has gone now, and I don't feel inclined to form fresh ties by getting a puppy. Puppies have to be trained, and I very much doubt if Cousin Edith is capable of training a puppy nowadays. She seems to have gone all to pieces since she caught this cold. I told her at the time that I could not understand why she wanted to make that long journey to Enfield. She came back on the outside of the tram, you know. It's all so unnecessary."