Ursula flared up. “It wasn’t Lottie, was it, who gave up her room to Aunt Lavvy when she--when Hal----” She struggled with scalding tears at the back of the throat. Why do they always come hotter for injustice and self-pity than for sorrow? Her hearers were startled and embarrassed beyond words at the reminder. They wanted to forget that episode, now that they were all united and kind and jovial again. It was indecent of Ursula to have hurled their obligation at them in this violent fashion, especially as there was no reply possible. They had all been grateful and thanked her. She could not exact gratitude twice over. Downcast eyelids and tightly-pressed mouths all round the table.... Of course she was only a child still, a charming undisciplined young colt, but even then---- The fact was that Ursula’s rather-more-than-usually-good deed had created a greater uneasiness among the Maxwells than Hal’s rather-more-than-bad deed which had preceded it. A thoroughly average family is not accustomed to either extension from the normal. Both Hal and Ursula were disturbingly “different.” Hal’s moral lapse had rapidly developed into a problem of consequences, which had been as rapidly wiped out, leaving next to nothing of the original shock. And then he had gone back to school.... Somehow, it was all not so uncomfortably evident as the sight of Ursula round the house, a disconsolate moping Peri emphasizing her yielded Paradise. For if she could be as noble as all that, she might at any moment be equally noble, or nobler. And the rest of them would have to live up to it, or else feel inferior. So that Hal, who could be forgiven, and who was eager to forget, was easily a more popular figure than Ursula, who had been their rescuer, and now prevented them from forgetting. “But I shall enjoy a walk to Marks, to see about a new key.” Aunt Lavvy broke the silence. “The hedges are just beginning to turn colour all along the road. It’s my favourite season.” Ursula had dashed out of the room, they all thought, in tears ... but presently she came back like a gale, and flung a small heavy object on to the breakfast-table. “There’s your key,” defiantly. “The key of the door between?” Aunt Lavvy picked it up. “You clever child! Where did you find it?” “I didn’t find it. I had hidden it--at the bottom of my handkerchief-box.” “You had hidden it? And why, pray?” demanded her father. Ursula thrust her hands into the pockets of her jersey, and tilted back her head. She was not crying now--indeed, there was urchin roguery sparkling in her eyes, and the corners of her lips were enigmatic: “To protect myself from visitors,” she replied sweetly. “Plain speech is a short cut,” said Tom Maxwell, getting angry with this young daughter, who, from being more or less of a cipher, had dared first to place him under an obligation, and then to taunt his helplessness with insubordination.