"I think you are right, and that your doctor _is_ rather 'snide,'" was all Katharine said, as she carried away the basin, and looked for his hair brushes. Ted's toilet table was characterised by a luxurious confusion, and she lingered for a moment to arrange the silver-topped bottles in some kind of order. "You never used to care for this sort of thing," she remarked, holding up a bottle of _eau de toilette_; "I remember how you teased me once, when I told you I put lavender water in my cold bath." "Oh, well, of course it's beastly rot and all that," owned Ted; "but it's the thing to do, and one must, don't you know? Hullo, what are you playing at now?" "I wish you would not be quite so languid," retorted Katharine. "How am I to brush your hair if you persist in behaving as though you were dying? I believe you are putting it on." "It's not my fault if I'm not so beastly energetic as you," grumbled Ted. "Don't play about any more, Kit; come over here and talk. And you needn't fold up those towels; they're not used to it, really." "I shouldn't think they were, from the look of them. Well, what have I got to talk about?" She came and sat down on the chair by his side, and he shifted his position so that he could see her face. She could have laughed aloud at his expression of utter contentment. "Oh, some rot; anything you like. You've always got lots to gas about, haven't you? How is Ivingdon, and the Grange; and does Peter Bunce still come in on Sunday afternoons; and has the doctor got any new dogs? Fire ahead, Kit! you've been down there doing nothing all this time, and you must know all there is to know, unless you're as half alive as you used to be. Hasn't anything happened to the old place?" "Yes," said Katharine, smiling back at him frankly. "They have mended the gap in the hedge." "The devil they have!" cried Ted. "We'll have it broken open again at once, won't we? Why didn't you stop them? You knew I wasn't there to tell them myself. Just like their confounded impertinence!" "Hush," interrupted Katharine. "You mustn't get excited, old man; it isn't good for you." She smoothed his pillows and arranged his coverlet with nervous rapidity, and Ted, submitting happily to her services, wondered innocently what she was blushing about. But he did not trouble himself to find out. "I am beastly glad I poisoned myself," he murmured, with lazy satisfaction. She was glad of the diversion when the Rector arrived at last, and she was allowed to escape into the next room. "Well, my boy, and how has the world gone with you?" she heard her father say in his genial tones. "It's a beastly jolly world, and I'm the jolliest brute in it," was Ted's reply.