e
window. I could do real work if I had this all nice and quiet to myself,
with my things about--and this view to look out at! I shall go and ask
mother this very minute!" and with cheeks pink with excitement she tore
down the bare stairs and along the corridor as though she was afraid she
would lose her chance if she waited a moment.

But at her mother's door she found her father standing, talking to Dr.
Gray. The doctor looked round at her with a little frown on his brow,
and put up his finger for silence. "Your mother is trying to sleep,"
he said rather sharply. "She had a bad night. Will you try and keep the
house as quiet as possible, Miss Audrey, please?"

Audrey's face clouded. She was disappointed at not being able to put her
request to her mother, and she was annoyed at being reproved.
Audrey never could endure reproof.

"I will try," she answered glumly; "but it is almost impossible to get
quiet here. The children are so noisy, and they never do what they are
told."

Mr. Carlyle sighed. Dr. Gray's eyebrows lifted a little. "They are very
imitative," he said. "If you explain to them how necessary it is,
for their mother's sake, and set them the example, I will answer for it
that they will be good."

But Audrey only tossed her head, and retired to her bedroom.

Presently, after what seemed a long time, Faith came up, carrying Joan,
asleep in her arms. She looked tired and hot. "She has dropped off at
last," she panted, "I am going to put her in her cot. I think it is the
warm weather that makes her so restless. She hasn't slept for hours."

Audrey did not reply. She sat on the chair beside her bed, and watched
her sister lay the sleeping child carefully on her pillow, without
disturbing her; then draw the blanket carefully over her.

That done to her satisfaction, Faith flung herself on her own bed with a
sigh of content. "Oh!" she sighed, "how lovely it is to lie down.
I am so tired, and my head aches so--and my feet."

The warm days had come in suddenly; though it was only April they seemed
to have stepped from winter right into summer, and everyone felt it.

Audrey looked at her sister with disapproving eyes. "A nice sight your
bed will be, when you get off it, and look at mine. Joan did that.
With that great slop on the floor, too, the room isn't fit to look at."

"I should think this heat would soon dry up anything," said Faith
placidly, "no floor could stay wet long, even if