ilding, which is, I understand, called jerry building,
is avoided.

At five o'clock, after I had heard some twenty or thirty stories and the
builders had placed in position about the same number of stones, I went
home in search of afternoon tea. My mother was in the drawing-room, and
Miss Battersby was with her. She too, had come to ask advice. I am sure
she needed it, poor woman. What she said about Lalage I do not know, for
the subject was dropped when I entered the room, but Miss Battersby's
position evidently commanded my mother's sympathy. Shortly after leaving
the rectory she was established, on my mother's recommendation, in
Thormanby Park. Lord Thormanby, who is my uncle, has three daughters,
all of them nice, well-disposed girls, not the least like Lalage.
Miss Battersby got on well with them, taught them everything which
well-educated girls in their position ought to know. She finally settled
down as a sort of private secretary to Lord Thormanby. He needed some
one of the sort, for as he grew older he became more and more addicted
to public business. He is at present about sixty-five. If he lives to be
seventy and goes on as he is going, Miss Battersby will have to
retire in favour of some one who can write shorthand and manipulate a
typewriter. She will then, I have no doubt, play a blameless part in
life by settling flowers for Lady Thormanby. But all this is still a
long way off.

I was naturally anxious to hear Miss Battersby's version of the
experimental treatment of Tom Kitterick's complexion. I hoped that
my mother would have told me the story voluntarily. She did not, so I
approached the subject obliquely after dinner.

"The Archdeacon," I said, "was lamenting to me this morning that Mrs.
Beresford died while Lalage was still a baby."

My mother seemed a little surprised to hear this.

"He takes the greatest interest in Lalage," I added. "She's a very
attractive little girl."

"Very," said my mother. "But I thought the Archdeacon went to Dublin
yesterday. He certainly told me he was going. Did he come back at once?"

"So far as I know he hasn't come back."

"Then when did he say----"

"He didn't actually say it at all. He hardly ever says anything to me. I
so seldom see him, you know."

This at least was true. Although the seat of the archdeaconry is in
Drumbo, a town which contains our nearest railway station and which is
our chief centre for local shopping, I had not spoken to the Archdea