n
order--only to bring towels and hot water."

Barrie looked pleadingly at Somerled. "I am quite clean," she said. "I
washed at home before I started. And I'm _so_ hungry."

Her appeal to him as a tried and trusted friend waked up something in
Somerled which he had not known existed. Whatever it was stirred and was
soft and warm in the region of his heart.

"I'm sure Mrs. West doesn't want to send you away," he said. And he
could have said nothing more tactless. "I, too, am comparatively
spotless," he went on, protecting his protegee by putting himself on her
level, "and superlatively hungry. We shall both be delighted to accept
your invitation to supper." He laughed, and Barrie gave him a grateful,
understanding glance. He felt as if she were a wonderfully pretty doll
which had somehow come alive after he had bought and rescued it from an
upper shelf in an unworthy toy-shop--a dear, delightful, untamed doll
which now belonged to him; and he was not sure that he wanted to let
anybody else play with it until he had begun to tire a little of its
tricks himself. Of course he'd tire in time; but there would not be time
for tiring, because the doll must soon be packed off and sent to its
mother.

"Tell Mr. Norman that Mr. Somerled has come, and that we're ready for
supper," said Aline to Moore. The eyes of mistress and maid met, and for
an instant they were social equals.

Basil Norman was a man who had odd thoughts and enjoyed them. For this
reason he did not weary of his own society, for he never quite knew what
he would think next. When he came to the door and pushed it open, he
half believed that he was dreaming the tall, beautiful, badly dressed
girl with torrents of red hair. People in real life did not wear their
hair in torrents. Perhaps she was a ghost who went with the house, and
he had never happened to see her before. He wondered if the others had
noticed her yet.

"How are you, Somerled?" he inquired, not taking his eyes off the
apparition. It was looking at him, too, almost anxiously, as if it were
wondering whether he would be friend or foe; but, of course, it did not
speak.

"All right. Very glad to see you both again--and to be here," Somerled
answered.

"Miss MacDonald," announced Aline, thin-lipped.

"So you have a name?" said Basil to Barrie. "Was it given to you in
dreamland or the spirit-world?" Then she knew at once that he was not a
foe, but a friend.

"Fairyland," she replied, beaming o