Jack with grudging admiration, as he limped about the kitchen, getting ready for the fish course, and seeing that other things were keeping in a state of readiness.

Pam’s merry laugh rang out. “It is a mercy I can do so much, for it is my fate to be always creating situations that call for dispatch and skill in the managing.”

Jack looked at her in silent wonder. Somehow he always was wondering at Pam. It was barely more than half an hour by the clock since she had been drowned in tears because of that curt letter from Lady Dalby, who had written to say that as she could not have Miss Walsh when she needed her so much, she had secured another governess. Pam’s salary had not been much, but in poverty like theirs every little counts. There was the doctor’s bill for Muriel’s illness, with all the other bills which had sprung from the same source, while winter was coming on. But it was of no use to “grouse” over things, it did not make them the least bit better. So he left off speculating about Pam, and ordered Barbara round in fine style for the next twenty minutes, and the courses of the dinner went up one by one until it was all over.

When coffee had been taken to the drawing-room, Greg and Sid cleared the dinner-table, and then came down to their supper in the breakfast-room, which opened out of the kitchen. Pam, who had rushed upstairs to see if Muriel was comfortably asleep, came hurrying back to help in washing up the silver and glass.

Then, “What is your great idea?” asked Jack, who was seated on a high stool at the table, and was rapidly polishing the spoons and forks which Pam had washed.

She glanced round, saw that the door of the scullery, where Barbara was washing plates and dishes, was a little way open, and darting across the room closed it softly.

“Jack!” she cried, with positive rapture in her tone, as she plunged her hands into the soapy water again, “Jack, I am going to ask Mother to let me go to Grandfather!”

“You can’t go alone⁠—⁠you are only a girl!” he exclaimed, dropping a handful of spoons with a clatter because he was so amazed at the daring and audacity of Pam’s great idea.

She laughed softly; it always amused her to hear Jack talk in this fashion. She was four years older than he was, and although she lacked his steadiness and balance, she knew that she was vastly ahead of him when it came to dealing with an emergency. “You are a dear, Jack, but you 

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