just packed my things and came off. At my
age," she straightened herself proudly, "one must assert oneself! I
asked her what was the use of being twenty-two, and how she'd have liked
it herself if she'd been thwarted at that age, and she gave in and
packed up remedies." Pixie picked up the brown leather bag which lay on
the floor, and opening it, took out the contents in turns, and laid them
on the sofa. "A tonic to build up the system. Beef-juice, to ditto.
Embrocation to be applied to the injured part. ... Tabloids. Home-made
cake. ... Oh, that tea! I'd forgotten. I'll make it at once, and
we'll eat the cake now." She jumped up and looked appealingly towards
Stephen. "Will you show me the kitchen? I don't know my way through
these lordly fastnesses!"

They went out of the room together, while Pat called out an eager,
"Don't be long!"

It was only a step into the tiny kitchen. In another moment Stephen and
Pixie stood within its portals, and she had closed the door behind with
a careful hand. Her face had sobered, and there was an anxious furrow
in her forehead.

"He looks _ill_!" she said breathlessly. "Worse than I expected. He
said he was getting well. Please tell me honestly--Is it _true_?"

"Perfectly true in one sense. The knee is doing well, but his general
health has suffered. He has been lonely and underfed, and at the first
there was considerable pain. I did my best to make him write to you
before, for he is not fit to be left alone. That servant is lazy and
inefficient."

Pixie glanced round the untidy room with her nose tilted high.

"'Twill be a healthful shock for her to come back and find a mistress in
possession. We'll have a heart to heart talk to-morrow morning," she
announced, with so quaint an assumption of severity that Stephen was
obliged to laugh. She laughed with him, struggling out of her coat, and
looking round daintily for a place to lay it.

"That nail on the door! There's not a clean spot. Now for the kettle!
You fill it, while I rummage. What's the most unlikely place for the
tea? It will be there. She's the sort of muddler who'd leave it loose
among the potatoes."

"It's in the caddy. The brown box on the dresser. I've found it
before."

"The caddy!" Pixie looked quite annoyed at so obvious a find. "Oh, so
it is. Where's the butter then, and the bread, and the sugar? Where's
the spoons? Where does she put the cloths? Rake out that bottom ba