boiling, and we'll make the tea in half a moment. Isn't it
glorious here? Queenie and I have been digging up potatoes, and we quite
enjoyed it. We felt exactly as if we were 'on the land.' How is your
cold, Hereward? Ingred, you look tired, child! Sit down and rest while
Queenie fetches the teapot."

Ingred sank into a garden-chair with much satisfaction. Wynchcote might
not be Rotherwood, but it looked an uncommonly pretty little place in
the September sunshine. To live there would be like a perpetual picnic.
Mother and Queenie looked so complacently smiling that it seemed
impossible to grouse, especially with newly-baked scones and rock-cakes
on the tea-table.

The men kind of the family had not yet returned home. Mr. Saxon and
Egbert rarely left their office before six, and Athelstane had that day
gone over to Birkshaw on the motor-bicycle, to arrange about the medical
course which he was to take at the University. There was plenty of news,
however, to be exchanged. Ingred had to give a full account of her
experiences at school and hostel, and to hear in return the various
achievements in the shape of home-carpentry, mending, making, and
altering which are always an essential part of settling into a new
establishment.

"I hardly feel I've been round the estate properly yet," she said, when
tea was over, and she sat leaning back lazily in her deck-chair, with
Minx purring upon her knee.

"Then come and lend me a hand with my rabbit-hutch," suggested Hereward.
"Put down that wretched pampered beast of a cat, for goodness sake! If
it gets at my new rabbit, I'll finish it! Yes, I will! I'll hang it or
drown it! Get along, you brute!"

Hereward's blood-thirsty remarks were ignored by Minx, who, finding
herself dropped from Ingred's lap, took a flying run up his back, and
settled herself on his shoulder, rubbing her head into his neck. He
scratched her under the chin, swung her gently down, and shook a
reproving finger at her.

"Don't try to come round me with your blarneyings, you siren!" he
declared. "Who was it ate my goldfinch? Yes, you may well look guilty!
Don't blink your eyes at me like that! I haven't forgiven you yet, and I
don't think I ever shall. Ingred, old sport, are you coming to help me,
or are you not? I want some one to hold the wire."

"All right, Uncle Podger, I'll come and 'podge' for you," laughed
Ingred. "Don't hammer my fingers, that's all I bargain for. Wait a
moment till I get my overal