“Why, I am too useful here, Mr. Rayner! I don’t know what they would have done without me, with first Haidee ill, and then Sarah. You see, as Mrs. Rayner is never well enough to give any directions, I was obliged to take a good deal upon myself; and I hope you won’t be angry when you hear all I’ve done.” “No, my child, I am sure I shall not,” said he, helping himself to some cold beef on the sideboard--there was no regular supper at the Alders, but there were always meat and biscuits on the sideboard after tea for those who cared for them. “How is Mrs. Rayner?” I told him that she was no better and no worse, and that she had moved to-day into the front spare-room. “To-day?” “Yes. She was so reluctant to leave her own room that I took the liberty of telling Sarah I would answer to you for delaying the change this one day. Was it too forward of me?” I asked timidly. “No,” said he very kindly, drawing me into a chair beside him at the table; “I give you full permission to use my authority in any way you think proper.” “Thank you, Mr. Rayner. And, oh, I don’t know what you will say, but I made Sarah take Haidee’s cot up to my room! The dressing-room in the left wing is so very cold. And then I sent for Doctor Lowe. Was that right? I had heard he was the best doctor in Beaconsburgh.” I asked this rather nervously, for I knew Mr. Rayner disliked Doctor Lowe. But he was in too good a humor to find fault with anything. “All that you have done is perfectly right, and always will be, in my eyes; so you need never fear what I may say to you, child. Have you any more news? I want to hear all about Sarah’s accident, and whether you were very much alarmed when you heard about the robbery at Denham Court.” “I have a lot to tell you,” I said hesitatingly; “but I won’t tell you any of it to-night, Mr. Rayner, because it is all bad, miserable news, and I won’t spoil your first evening. It is bad enough to come back to a house as full of invalids as a hospital. But it will all come right again now you are back.” Mr. Rayner laughed, and seemed much pleased. He put his hand on mine, which was lying on the table, and looked into my face very kindly indeed. “Do you think so, my child? Are you so glad to see me again?” “Yes, indeed I am. You can’t think how dull the place is when you are away. There is nobody to talk or laugh, and one creeps about the house as if one were in a Trappist monastery, and didn’t dare to break the sacred silence.” “Thanks, my child; that is the very prettiest welcome home I have had for--years,” said he, with much feeling in his voice. And he kept me a long time chatting to him and listening to his account of what he had seen in London, until at last I grew very sleepy while he finished the story of his adventures; and I said I must really go to bed, or I should never be able to get up in time for breakfast. As it was, the clock struck eleven before I went upstairs.