Joan put Bobbie's cage down on the chest of drawers and took off his cover. "My dear little yellow bird," she murmured caressingly, "we must keep you out of the draught!" She took off her hat and washed her hands. Going to her bag she found a comb and hastily tidied her hair. "I'm quite ready, Mrs. Keith," she said, rejoining the housekeeper. The old woman opened a door a little way down the passage. "This be his nursery," she whispered. The room was long and unexpectedly light, having three large windows; but it struck Joan with a little shock of pity that they were barred along the lower half, just as the window had been in the old bedroom at Leaside when she and Milly were venturesome little children. In front of the fire stood a tall nursery guard. "Here's the kind lady, Master Rupert; 'er what I told you about." A large, shabby man, with a full grey beard and a mane of hair, was kneeling in front of an open cupboard. As Joan came forward he looked round piteously. "I've lost my dolly, my best dolly," he whimpered. "You haven't hidden my dolly, have you?" "Now, now, Master Rupert!" said Mrs. Keith sharply. "This is Miss Ogden, what's come here to look after you; come and say 'How do you do' to her, at once." The big, untidy man stood up. He eyed Joan with suspicion, fingering his beard. "I don't like _you_," he said thoughtfully, "I don't like you at all. Go away, please; I believe you've hidden my dolly." "Can't I help you to look for her?" Joan suggested. "What's this one; is this the dolly?" she added, retrieving a dilapidated wax doll from under a chair. "_That's_ my dolly!" cried the man in a tone of rapture. "That's my dear, darling dolly! Isn't she beautiful?" And he hugged the doll to his bosom. "Say 'Thank you,' Master Rupert," admonished Mrs. Keith. But the man looked sulky. "I shan't thank her; she hid my dolly. I know she did!" "Oh, you must thank her, Master Rupert. It was her who _found_ your dolly for you. Come now, be good!" But the patient stamped his foot. "Take her away!" he ordered peremptorily. "I don't like her hair." "Come downstairs," murmured Mrs. Keith, pushing Joan gently out of the room. "He'll be all right next time he sees you; you be strange to him just at first, but presently he'll love you dearly, I expects." 2 In the housekeeper's room the old woman became expansive. Obviously nervous lest the patient had made a bad impression, she tried clumsily to correct it by entertaining Joan with details about her predecessors, of whom Mrs. Keith had apparently known four. Seated in the worn arm-chair by the fire, Joan listened silently to this depressing recital.