The front garden was still strewn with empty packing cases and paper and litter of all kinds. As they unlatched the gate, Mrs. Norman came out of the front door. She was a pretty woman; her complexion was good, her eyes rather a vivid blue. She showed a good many teeth when she smiled and talked, and her hair was bright golden. She was dressed in a very short and shabby tweed skirt, a man's bright yellow cardigan jacket was over it, and a soft grey felt hat, with a jay's feather and a bit of staghorn moss in it, gave her a distinctly sporty appearance. "How awfully kind and friendly of you!" she said, holding out her hand to Sidney. "Your uncle told me what a friend you were to any forlorn strangers. Do come in, if you don't mind the chaos. I'm in the state of the Irishman who said: 'Sure I'm in sech a botheration and commiseration, that I don't know whether me toes come out of me head or me legs!'" She led the way into the tiny house, found some chairs, and Sidney sat down and looked about her. "You ought to have had a woman in to clean," she said. "Are you quite by yourself?" "Absolutely. I quaked in the night when I remembered half of my china was lying in the packing cases in the garden; but then I remembered that the country was not crammed with thieves, and I slept like a dog till nine this morning. I've only just finished my breakfast." Major Urquhart was already examining the walls of the tiny sitting-room. "Look here," he said, "this is the place! I'll rig you up some shelves in this recess in no time. And how would a locker at the bottom work, with a lid? It's a tidy contrivance of my own, for women always have a lot of rubbish about—sewing, you call it, don't you? And you can shoot the whole lot in, when you want a tidy room, see? My man will be here directly with some wood." "Oh, how awfully kind of you! That's what I always say—men are so delightfully prompt. If they promise a thing, they go straight away and do it." She sprang up, and for the next twenty minutes she and the Major were deep in calculations and measurements. Sidney looked on, half amused, half interested. Then Mrs. Norman turned to her with a laughing apology: "You will think me most dreadfully rude, but it really is a chance for me, when I have such a kind offer made me. I can't afford to have half I should like in this house. I'm afraid you'll go back, and think me a calculating selfish creature; but I've learnt a good many things in life, and one is how to take from people. There was a time when I preferred to give; but then, of course, I had the means to do it. After all, the world is divided between givers and takers, and if you can't be one, you can be the other." She laughed as she spoke, and Sidney felt the magnetism of her frank cheerfulness.