rom the paved court-yard which connected two of
the wings of Wyndfell Hall. Span was barking now, barking eagerly,
happily, confidently. And when the two young people reappeared they were
both laughing.

"He's taken to the cook tremendously," said Bubbles. "And he's even made
friends--and that's much more wonderful--with the cat. He went straight
up to her and smelt her, and she seemed to be quite pleased with the
attention."

She turned to Dr. Panton: "I'll go out presently and see how he's
getting on," she added.

He looked at her gratefully. She really was a nice girl! He had thought
that she would be one of those disagreeable, forward, self-sufficing,
modern young women, who are absorbed only in themselves, and in the
effect they produce on other people. But Miss Bubbles was not in the
least like that.

Helen Brabazon whispered, smiling: "Isn't Bubbles Dunster a dear, Dr.
Panton? She's not like anyone I ever met before--and that makes her all
the nicer, doesn't it?"

CHAPTER XII

About an hour after Dr. Panton's arrival, the whole of the party was
more or less scattered through the delightful old house, with the
exception of Lionel Varick, who had gone off to the village by himself.

But the four ladies finally gathered together in the hall to put in the
time between tea and dinner.

Miss Burnaby was soon nodding over a book close to the fire, while Helen
Brabazon and Blanche Farrow had brought down their work. This consisted,
as far as Helen was concerned, of a complicated baby's garment destined
for the Queen's Needlework Guild. Blanche, sitting close to Helen, was
bending over a frame containing the intricate commencement of a fruit
and bird _petit-point_ picture, which, when finished, she intended
should form a banner screen for this very room.

Three seven-branched silver candlesticks had now been lighted, and
formed pools of soft radiance in the gathering dusk.

After wandering about restlessly for a while, Bubbles ensconced herself
far away from the others, in the old carved wood confessional, which had
seemed in Donnington's eyes so incongruous and unsuitable an object to
form part of the furnishings of a living room.

To Blanche Farrow, the confessional, notwithstanding the beauty of the
carving, suggested an irreverent simile--that of a telephone-box. She
told herself that only Bubbles would have chosen such an uncomfortable
resting-place.

But when stepping up into what had once be