“I come home so tired sometimes,” she said, “that I fear I may put a damper on Hugh’s prattle, or fail him in his romps. Miss Latimer, too, is very tired, and she is growing old. It would be such a comfort to feel I had a young friend’s help to fall back upon at a pinch. It might not happen often. It may not happen at all, because it will be such a restful relief to know there is somebody to fall back on. I shall take no mean advantage of your presence in this matter,” she added, with an April smile. “I think you may trust me for that!” “Oh, Mrs. Challoner,” said Tom, “that’s just what a fellow misses when he isn’t at home; there’s nobody expects anything from him, and he gets like a working and feeding and eating machine. I’m sure I’ll be only too delighted to be of any use I can. As for playing with Hugh, we’ll have drill and all sorts of larks. And he can go for a run with me in the evenings, whenever you don’t want to walk! To think of getting into a home such as this! How thankful mother will be! She’s beginning to worry about the matter, for though I’ve made light of it to her, she seemed to guess how it would be.” So it was settled. Then Clementina Gillespie duly kept the appointment Mrs. Challoner made with her. Her appearance well supported her introduction by Mrs. Bray’s faithful Rachel. Certainly she had not the sonsie charm of the delusive Mrs. Morison. Quite the reverse. Clementina’s face had no resemblance to a winter apple lying in the frost. She was pale and thin, almost cadaverous-looking, with a well-marked aquiline nose and a long jaw. In place of Mrs. Morison’s white frills and cosy wraps, she was clad in what she called her “mournings,” without a dash of white about her. Lucy at once noticed the soft Highland voice, with its strange Celtic wailing. But Clementina Gillespie’s manner and appearance were alike “superior.” Indeed, there was a kind of severe, decayed high-breeding and elegance about her. “Four people instead of three, ma’am,” she said, when Lucy told her that her household was to be joined by a youth of seventeen. “It will make no differ to me, whatever. I shall have nothing to do but to try to do my best for you all. And, indeed, the young gentleman will be a blessing and a safeguard in the house, for I do think this Babylon has terrible risks for a household of lone women.” “There is not so much danger as people from country places are apt to imagine,” Lucy hastened to reassure her, fearful lest terrors of “Babylon” should drive her back to her native fastnesses. “The young gentleman will sleep in the little room behind the dining-room, Miss Latimer, I and my little boy are on the first floor, and your bedroom is in the attic, so you see burglars will have to pass us all before they can get to you,” she added playfully. Clementina Gillespie did not smile. “They might come in by the roof,” she said. “I hear they often do. What is fated will happen. But I am not afraid, whatever.”