d your father must just do as you like about it.
Why not make me cook-housekeeper?"

"Oh, but could you?" Norah cried delightedly. "Wouldn't it be too
much work?"

"I don't think so--of course I'm expecting that you're going to help
in supervising things. I can teach you anything. You see, Katty is a
treasure. I back down in all I ever thought about Irish maids," said
the cook-lady, parenthetically. "And she makes me laugh all day, and
I wouldn't be without her for anything. Give me a smart boy in the
kitchen for the rough work; then Katty can do more of the plain
cooking, which she'll love, and I shall have more time out of the
kitchen. Now what do you say?"

"Me?" said Norah. "I'd like to hug you!"

"I wish you would," said Miss de Lisle, knitting more frantically than
ever. "You see, this is the first place I've been in where I've
really been treated like a human being. You didn't patronize me, and
you didn't snub me--any of you. But you laughed with me; and it was a
mighty long time since laughing had come into my job. Dear me!"
finished Miss de Lisle--"you've no idea how at home with you all I've
felt since Allenby fell over me in the passage!"

"We loved you from that minute," said Norah, laughing. "Then you
think we can really manage? You'll have to let me consult with you
over everything--ordering, and all that: because I do want to learn my
job. And you won't mind how many people we bring in?"

"Fill the house to explosion-point, if you like," said Miss de Lisle.
"If you don't have a housekeeper you'll have two extra rooms to put
your Tired People in. What's the good of a scheme like this if you
don't run it thoroughly?"

She found herself suddenly hugged, to the no small disadvantage of the
knitting.

"Oh, I'm so happy!" Norah cried. "Now I'm going to enjoy the Home for
Tired People: and up till now Mrs. Atkins has lain on my soul like a
ton of bricks. Bless you, Miss de Lisle! I'm going to tell Dad."
Her racing footsteps flew down the corridor.

But Miss de Lisle sat still, with a half smile on her rugged face.
Once she put her hand up to the place where Norah's lips had brushed
her cheek.

"Dear me!" she murmured. "Well, it's fifteen years since any one did
_that_." Still smiling, she picked up the knitting.

CHAPTER X

AUSTRALIA IN SURREY

The three Australians came that afternoon; and, like many Australians
in the wilds of London with a vague idea of distances