it's too late for me to
see The Grange, and what on earth I shall tell father I don't know."

"He's not outside?"

"In the car? You don't think I should still be here if he was? No, I
came over alone."

"That's all right. Now you'll be able to help me with this jig-saw."

She gave rather a good gasp at that.

"Girl Blue, please. You've heaps of time, because, if you'd gone to
The Grange, you wouldn't have got away yet. And it's a nice jig-saw,
quite one of the family."

"Eats out of your hand, I suppose?"

"Rather. And sits up and barks for Baldwin and all the rest of it. 'A
Young Diana' it's called. Appeared in last year's Academy, and--"

But she was down on her knees on the lawn, staring at the tray by now.
I joined her, wondering a little.

"That's a bit of Merrylegs," she said, picking up one of the pieces,
"and there's another. That's a bit of her dear nose, and there's her
white stocking. Look here, we'll do her first."

I sat down on the turf and looked at her. "Either," I said
slowly--"either you're a witch, and that isn't allowed, or else you've
had to learn this picture some time as a punishment."

She laughed. "I sat for it," she explained. "That's all."

It was my turn to gasp.

"It's hanging in the dining-room at home now. Come along. There's a
bit of my habit. Keep it with Merrylegs. I'll fit them together in a
minute."

I took off my coat, kneeled down beside her, and began to receive
Merrylegs piecemeal. When she had picked out all of the mare, she
cleared a little space, and began fitting the bits together at a rate
that was astonishing. Then she turned her attention to the background.
Laid upon its side, the mysterious ladder became a distant fence, and
little by little a landscape grew into being under her small fingers.
Suddenly she caught my arm.

"Somebody's coming!" she whispered.

I heard footsteps crunch on a path's gravel, then all was silent again.
Whoever it was, was coming towards us over the lawn. A clump of
rhododendrons hid us from them, and them from us.

"Behind there!" I whispered, pointing to three tall elms at our back,
which grew so close together that they formed a giant screen. She was
out of sight in a second, and I had just time to throw my coat over the
jig-saw and sit down upon the glove she had dropped before Berry
appeared.

"Hullo!" he said.

"Hullo!" said I.

"What are you doing?"

"Doing?"

"Yes, you know--executing,