"I'm so glad I'm not the laziest," she said, as she took her seat.

"I'm afraid you are, my dear," replied her father.

"Dick's fetching his car from Iddingfield," explained Randal.

The air was torn by three distinct wails from a syren.

"How unearthly!" said Amaryllis, with her hands to her ears.

"That's Dick," said his brother. "He would have a noise worse than anyone else's."

Dick came in from the garden. "Morning, Miss Caldegard," he said, as he sat down. "How d'you like my hooter? Sounds like a fog-horn deprived of its young, doesn't it?"

Amaryllis laughed.

"I hate it," she said.

Randal looked up from the letter he was reading.

"I'm afraid you two will have to amuse each other this morning," he said, glancing from the girl to his brother as he handed the letter across the table to Caldegard. "That'll take a lot of answering, and I can't do it without your help. I'm afraid Sir Charles has got hold of the wrong end of the stick."

"How are you going to amuse me, Miss Caldegard?" asked Dick.

"I haven't the faintest idea," she replied.

"Help me try my car?"

"I should like to—if you can do without me, dad?"

At half-past seven that evening Sir Randal went to his brother's room, and found him dressing for dinner.

"Nice sort of chap you are," he said. "I ask you to amuse a young woman after breakfast——"

"I did," said Dick.

"And you keep her for eight hours. Where have you been?"

"Miss Caldegard bought things in Oxford Street. We had lunch in Oxford, and tea at Chesham," said Dick, brushing his hair carefully back from his forehead. "You can't call that wasting time."

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