cook-lady. He was pale with apprehension.

"I--I--do beg your pardon, mum!" he gasped. "I 'adn't an idea in me
'ead there was any one there, least of all you on your knees. I just
come backin' out with the bucket!"

"I say, Miss de Lisle, are you hurt?" Jim asked anxiously.

"Not a bit, which is queer, considering Allenby's weight!" returned
Miss de Lisle. "But it's--it's just t-too funny, isn't it!" She
broke into a shout of laughter, and the others, who had, indeed, been
choking with repressed feeling, followed suit. Allenby, after a
gallant attempt to preserve the correct demeanour of a butler,
unchanged by any circumstance, suddenly bolted into the kitchen like a
rabbit. They heard strange sounds from the direction of the sink.

"But, I say, you're drenched!" said Jim, when every one felt a little
better.

Miss de Lisle glanced at her stained and dripping overall.

"Well, a little. I'll take this off," she said, suiting the action to
the word, and appearing in a white blouse and grey skirt which suited
her very much better than the roseate garment. "But my floor! And I
had it so beautifully polished!" she raised her voice. "Allenby!
What are you going to do about this floor?"

"Indeed, mum, I've made a pretty mess of it," said Allenby,
reappearing.

"You have, indeed," said she.

"But I never expected to find you 'ere a-polishin'," said the
bewildered ex-sergeant.

"And I certainly never expected to find the butler scrubbing!"
retorted Miss de Lisle; at which Allenby's jam dropped, and he cast an
appealing glance at Jim.

"This is a working-bee," said Jim promptly. "We're all in it, and no
one else knows anything about it."

"Not Mrs. Atkins, I hope, sir," said Allenby.

"Certainly not. As for Sarah, she's out of it altogether."

Allenby sighed, a relieved butler.

"I'll see to the floor, sir," he said. "It's up to me, isn't it? And
polish it after. I can easy slip down 'ere for a couple of hours
after lunch, when you're all out ridin'."

"Then I really had better fly," said Miss de Lisle. "I am pretty wet,
and there's lunch to think about." She looked at them in friendly
fashion. "Thank you all very much," she said--and was gone, with a
kind of elephantine swiftness.

The family returned to the dining-room, leaving Allenby to grapple
with the swamp in the passage.

"Don't we have cheery adventures when we clean house!" said Wally
happily. "I wouldn't have missed this morn