"So long as you look upon the bathroom matter reasonably, I am quite sure we shan't quarrel. Tell me about Lady Letitia, please? Is she quite well--and the Marquis and all of them? And when are they coming down?" "They are quite well," he told her, "and Lady Letitia sent you her love. They talk of coming down almost at once." "I do hope they will," she replied, "because when we leave here dad and I are going to stay for a week or so with some friends quite near. There! Did you hear that noise? That's daddy stamping because he is getting impatient." "Then perhaps--" David suggested. "I suppose we'd better," she interrupted. "Be lenient about the bathroom, please. And if you could manage not to notice that the dining room wants papering, you'd be an angel. This way." CHAPTER XIX David proved himself such a very satisfactory incoming tenant that the Colonel insisted upon his staying to lunch and hastened off into the cellar to find a bottle of old Marsala, of which he proposed that they should partake with a dry biscuit before Mr. Merridrew's departure. Sylvia sank into a low chair with a little exclamation of despair. "Now daddy's done it!" she exclaimed. "Are you hungry, Mr. Thain?" "Not very--yet," David replied, glancing at his watch. "You see, it's only half-past eleven." "Because," she said impressively, "there are exactly three rather skinny cutlets in the house. All the servants left this morning--'all', I said. We only have two!--and an old woman from the village is coming up at half-past twelve to cook them. One was for me and two were for father. Perhaps you will tell me what I am to do?" David smiled. "Well," he observed, "I was distinctly asked to luncheon, and I accepted. Haven't you anything--" "Anything what?" she asked patiently. "Tinned in the house, or that sort of thing?" he suggested, a little vaguely. "Of course we haven't," she replied. "Don't you know that we are all packed up and leaving to-morrow? It's the biggest wonder in the world that we have any biscuits to eat with that precious Marsala." "Why not," he proposed hopefully, "put on your hat and motor into Fakenham with me? I suppose there is a butcher's shop there. We can buy something together." She sprang to her feet. "And you can choose exactly what you like!" she exclaimed. "Mr. Thain, you are delightful! That is the best of you Americans. You are full of resource. I shan't be a minute getting a hat and a pair of gloves." David strolled about the gardens of his new demesne until Sylvia reappeared. She had pinned on a blue tam-o'-shanter and was wearing a jersey of the same colour. "I shall love a spin in your car!" she exclaimed. "And you drive yourself, too. How delightful!" They swung off through the more thickly wooded part of the park, driving in places between dense clumps of rhododendrons, and coming unexpectedly upon a walled garden, neglected, but brilliant with spring and early summer flowers.