With the Christmas holidays Jack and Francis came home from school. Heathside seethed with noise, pets and handicrafts. Giles, now demobilized, was preparing for his return to Oxford after Christmas. He went up and down to London a good deal and she had the sensation of having lost him; of being relegated by him to the family group. One day, however, he came into the dining-room while she was trying to write a letter on a corner of the table. It was only in the dining-room that a fire was lighted in the mornings, and Jack and Francis were carpentering at one end, while Ruth cut out blouses in the middle. It was difficult to try to tell Maman about “The Messiah” in such surroundings, and though she liked Jack and Francis so much she could not bring herself to like the white rat that ambled heavily about among the tools and _crêpe de Chine_. “I say, that’s not much of a place for letter-writing,” Giles remarked. “Come to my study, Alix. I’m a favoured person and have a gas-fire going all morning.” “But she’s going out with us directly, to see our ferrets!” shouted Jack and Francis. They were dear little boys; Francis brown, like Giles, and Jack fair like his sisters. Oddly, enough, with all their uproar, Alix felt them gentler, more respectful of one’s identity, than Ruth and Rosemary. “Do you want to see the ferrets, Alix?” Giles inquired. “Are you fond of ferrets?” “I do not like what I hear of them,” said Alix. “But cats, too, do dreadful things; and one loves cats.” “I’ll defy anyone to love a ferret.” “We’re not going to let her see the rabbiting. She says she doesn’t want to, though she misses a lot. It’s far kinder than traps. Bobby kills them in a minute.” “No; I do not want to see that. But will after lunch do for ferrets? I would rather finish my letters now,” Alix owned. And though she was sorry to disappoint Jack and Francis, it was with a sense of escape that she followed Giles out of the dining-room. The study was small, warm, and untidy. Under an ugly mantelpiece of carved oak was a bright little gas-fire, looking like incandescent dried apples, and on the mantelpiece were ranged pipes, family photographs, and quite a menagerie of small animal ornaments which Alix guessed to be family presents. There was a small metal bear on his hind legs holding spills in his arms, a horrible china cow, yellow with red spots and a place in her back for matches, and a foolish puppy in black velvet with a red flannel tongue and one ear that went up and one that went down. A very grubby and irrelevant statuette of Venus de Milo stood among them and Alix felt sorry for her. “Behold my jewels!” said Giles with a grin. “Francis gave me that monster when he was three; that’s from Jack and that from Rosemary. The Venus is an effort of Ruth’s; brought to me from Paris. Everything you see there is either Christmas or birthdays.” “You are very faithful to your anniversaries,” said Alix, smiling. “What a nice photograph of your mother.”