But today the air was grey and melancholy; the leaves were yellow and brown, without flame or gesture. Presently it began to rain. Miss Roberts, superintending Ursula’s Shakespeare hour, and Lottie’s French, in the pseudo-schoolroom, shivered a little, and corrected a rebellious thought by a dutiful amendment of how right it was of her employer not to sanction fires before October the first: “Young folk carry their fires inside ’em,” he said. “Bijou, caillou, chou, genou, hibou, joujou, pou,” recited Lottie with fluency, and waited for praise. “Well, dear?” Miss Roberts waited expectantly. “Are the only nouns that take ‘x’ in the plural, or else the only ones that don’t; I’m not sure.” “But you _ought_ to be sure, Lottie. Suppose you were in France, and had to ask for any of those things in a great hurry.” “I don’t think she’s likely to,” Ursula argued staidly. “Jewels, pebbles, cabbage, knees----” She burst out laughing. “Fancy wanting knees in a hurry in France--or owls!” Lottie began to giggle, too; and Miss Roberts, feeling that there was something vaguely indecent about knees--in France--changed the subject. “It’s raining. I expect it will be too cold for Nurse to stop out with the babies. So we’d better hurry up.” She took the Macbeth, with its copious notes, from Ursula’s hands, and began to question her from the glossary: “‘Paddock,’ a toad. Lily-livered means cowardly. Marry--a corruption of the Virgin Mary, a slight oath. Moe--more. Sinel was the Earl of Northumberland.” “No, no, Ursula. That’s _Siward_. Sinel ... think now.” Ursula shook her head. “Macbeth’s father, according to Holinshed,” Miss Roberts quoted triumphantly from the book. “Well, anyway, he doesn’t come into the play; and Shakespeare wrote it, not Holinshed, so----” “Posset”? questioned Miss Roberts patiently. She knew that Ursula in these silly exasperating moods, when she questioned everything, must simply not be encouraged.