And Sir Harry cast at Pamela a glance which showed how bright a halo he threw round everything and every one belonging to her. Pamela, meanwhile, had grown serious and anxious to be able to speak to her hostess. Sir Harry noted this, and said: “Miss Candover wants to speak to you, Madame. Now I hope you won’t send me away; I’ve been manœuvring to get asked to tea. Shall I go out into the garden and feed the rabbits--if there are any rabbits--while she pours out her heart to you?” Pamela turned to him gratefully. “Would you--would you really?” she said, with pretty gratitude. “I do want to speak to Madame, but I don’t want to drive you away.” Audrey, whose spirits rose in the presence of these two bright, good-looking, sympathetic young people, nodded a smiling dismissal to Sir Harry, who promptly took himself off into the garden, and made elaborate pretences of plucking handfuls of grass to feed imaginary animals while the ladies talked. Pamela seized Audrey by the arm, and made her sit beside her on a couch while she poured into her ear a rather disquieting tale. “There’s been a woman,” she said, “a wild-looking, uncanny woman, not quite in her right mind, I think, calling at Miss Willett’s, and asking to see us. She says she’s our mother, but we know that our mother is dead. We don’t quite like to write to my father about it, because he doesn’t like to be told annoying things. So I thought I’d run over and see you, and ask you what we’d better do.” Audrey was troubled. There were these vague clouds of distress and mystery in every direction, she thought. How was it? “What does Miss Willett think?” she asked. “Oh, she’s an old maid, and she is simply horror-struck, and can do nothing but hold up her hands and say ‘Dear, dear, how dreadful!’ and refuse admittance to the woman. But we girls can’t be satisfied like that, and so I thought of you. What would you suggest?” Audrey considered a moment. “Supposing I were to see her?” she said. “Oh, would you? That would be sweet of you! We don’t dare to see her ourselves, and yet we don’t like to take it for granted that--that----” “Next time she comes--if she does come--give her--let her be given, my address, and refer her to me. Hush, here comes the tea. And we must call our rabbit-lover in.” They went to the window, and made signs to the ostentatiously distant Sir Harry that he might come in, and they had such a merry hour together that it was with difficulty they could make up their minds to break up the party. At last, however, Audrey put Pamela into the pony-carriage and drove her over to Staines, where she could take the train direct to within a short distance of her school, and Sir Harry, very reluctantly, bade them good-bye, with many hints that he should like to come again. Audrey was quite cheered by the merry young people, who were, after all, of her own generation, though circumstances had combined to make her feel many years older.