As Miriam sat having tea with the children in the dining-room the brougham drove up to the door. “There’s someone arriving,” she said, hoping to distract the attention of the children from her fumblings with the teapot and the hot water jug. They had certainly never met anyone who did not know how to pour out tea. But they were taken in by her bored tone. “It’s only Joey,” said Sybil, frowning tranquilly, her lively penetrating brown eyes fixed on the table just ahead of the small plate nearly covered by a mass of raspberry jam from which she ate with a teaspoon in the intervals of taking small bites from a thin piece of bread and butter held conveniently near her mouth as she sat with one elbow on the table. “She’s always here.” She looked across the table and met the soft brown eyes of the boy. They had been wandering absently about her square pale face and her short straggling red hair as she answered Miriam. “Jenooshalet,” he said, lisping over the s and smiling meditatively. “Jeno_ash_,” responded Sybil, and they both laughed drunkenly. “What _I’m_ finking,” said the boy, putting a teaspoonful of jam into his teacup and speaking with a stammering difficulty that drew deep lines in his thin face; “what’s worrying me is she’ll have Rollo after tea instead of us.... Vat’s what I’m finking.” “D’you like bays?” said Sybil, throwing a fleeting glance in the direction of Miriam. “Yes, I do, I think,” said Miriam at random, patting her hair and wondering if the children had been to Weymouth.