Nigel dived out of the window, and caught her up bodily. Her clothes smelt strongly of milk and garden mould, not an altogether pleasing combination. But for some reason or other he felt delighted, and carried her in triumph round the kitchen before he introduced her to a large placid-looking cat. "Don' like it." This was humiliating, but Nigel persevered. "Have some of this--" and he offered her a spoonful of jam out of the pot on the table. The little girl sniffed it with the air of a connoisseur. "Don' like it." "Well, try this--" plunging the same spoon into the sugar basin. "Don' like it." Fortunately at that moment Janey came in. "Nigel, what on earth are you doing?--Hullo, Ivy!" She looked surprised at the scowling infant perched on her brother's shoulder. "She's come for the milk, and I'm giving her some breakfast." "Wan'er go 'ome!" shrieked Ivy. Nigel looked so mortified that Janey could hardly help laughing--till suddenly she realised that there was something rather pathetic about it all. Nigel had never used to struggle for the good-will of dirty children. "She'd better come with me," she said, "and I'll give her the milk. Her mother won't like it if she's kept." Ivy alighted with huge satisfaction on the floor, and left the room with Janey, after throwing a bit of box-lid at the cat. Janey came back in a few minutes. "Like to help me get the breakfast, old man?" she asked cheerily. Nigel was pacing up and down the kitchen. "What a dear little thing she is!" he said. "Who? Ivy? I think she's a regular little toad. How funny you are, Nigel!" Half-an-hour later the three Furlongers were at breakfast. Nigel had always been subject to moods just like a girl, and sometimes his changes from heights to depths had been irritating. But to-day his brother and sister saw the advantages of such a nature. The two boys fooled together all through the meal, and Janet watched them, smiling. Nigel had found his tongue to some purpose. Strange to say, he was more than ready to talk of his prison experiences, though, as he had already hinted to Janey, he had two sets of these. One set, typified by his fumigated clothes, he seemed positively to revel in; the other set he never mentioned of his free will, though he obviously used to brood over them. "Hullo! there's the postman!" cried Janet suddenly. She rose to go to the door, but Nigel was nearest it, and sprang out before her. "Morning, Winkworth!" he shouted hilariously. "I'm back again." "Glad to see you, Mus' Furlonger," chuckled the postman. "You look in pretty heart." "Never was better in my life," and waving a letter in his hand he swung back into the kitchen. "A letter for Janey!--Janey's the lucky devil"--as he flung it across the table. "I wonder who it's from," said Leonard; "open it, Janey, and see." Letters were always an excitement in the Furlonger family--they were few enough to be that. "Know the writing, Janey?"