te-and-gold!"

"All right," laughed Ingred.

"It's so delightful that the war's over, and we can begin to have
parties again, like we used to do. Beatrice Jackson told me she should
never forget that Carnival dance she went to at Rotherwood five years
ago, and all the lanterns and fairy lamps. Some of the other girls talk
about it yet. Hullo, that's the gong! Come indoors, and we'll have tea."

Ingred was very quiet as she went back in the sidecar that evening,
though Hereward, sitting on the luggage-carrier, was in high spirits,
and fired off jokes at her the whole time. The fact was she was thinking
deeply. Certain problems, which she had hitherto cast carelessly away,
now obtruded themselves so definitely that they must at last be faced.
The process, albeit necessary, was not altogether a pleasant one.

To understand Ingred's perplexities we must give a brief account of the
fortunes of her family up to the time this story begins. Mr. Saxon was
an architect, who had made a good connection in the town of Grovebury.
Here he had designed and built for himself a very beautiful house, and
had liberally entertained his own and his children's friends. When war
broke out, he had been amongst the first to volunteer for his country's
service, and, as a further act of patriotism, he and his wife had
decided to offer the use of "Rotherwood" for a Red Cross Hospital. The
three boys were then at school, Egbert and Athelstane at Winchester, and
Hereward at a preparatory school; so, storing the furniture, Mrs. Saxon
moved into rooms with Quenrede and Ingred, who were attending the girls'
college in Grovebury as day boarders. For the whole period of the war
this arrangement had continued; Rotherwood was given over to the wounded
soldiers, and Mrs. Saxon herself worked as one of their most devoted
nurses.

In course of time Egbert and Athelstane had also joined the army, and
with three of her menkind at the front, their mother had been more than
ever glad to fill up at the hospital the hours when her girls were
absent from her at school. Then came the Armistice, and the blessed
knowledge that, though not yet home again, the dear ones were no longer
in danger. By April the Red Cross had finished its work in Grovebury;
the remaining patients regretfully departed, the wards were dismantled
of their beds, and Rotherwood was handed back to its rightful owners.

Naturally it needed much renovation and decorating before it was again
fit