our lodger. Going on all right, eh?"

"Never knew so quiet and well-behaved a gentleman," said Bunting.
"He turned our luck, did Mr. Sleuth."

His wife left the room, and after she had gone Daisy laughed.
"You'll hardly believe it, Mr. Chandler, but I've never seen this
wonderful lodger. Ellen keeps him to herself, that she does! If I
was father I'd be jealous!"

Both men laughed. Ellen? No, the idea was too funny.

CHAPTER XII

"All I can say is, I think Daisy ought to go. One can't always do
just what one wants to do--not in this world, at any rate!"

Mrs. Bunting did not seem to be addressing anyone in particular,
though both her husband and her stepdaughter were in the room. She
was standing by the table, staring straight before her, and as she
spoke she avoided looking at either Bunting or Daisy. There was in
her voice a tone of cross decision, of thin finality, with which
they were both acquainted, and to which each listener knew the other
would have to bow.

There was silence for a moment, then Daisy broke out passionately,
"I don't see why I should go if I don't want to!" she cried.
"You'll allow I've been useful to you, Ellen? 'Tisn't even as if
you was quite well."

"I am quite well--perfectly well!" snapped out Mrs. Bunting, and
she turned her pale, drawn face, and looked angrily at her
stepdaughter.

"'Tain't often I has a chance of being with you and father." There
were tears in Daisy's voice, and Bunting glanced deprecatingly at
his wife.

An invitation had come to Daisy--an invitation from her own dead
mother's sister, who was housekeeper in a big house in Belgrave
Square. "The family" had gone away for the Christmas holidays, and
Aunt Margaret--Daisy was her godchild--had begged that her niece
might come and spend two or three days with her.

But the girl had already had more than one taste of what life was
like in the great gloomy basement of 100 Belgrave Square. Aunt
Margaret was one of those old-fashioned servants for whom the modern
employer is always sighing. While "the family" were away it was
her joy--she regarded it as a privilege--to wash sixty-seven pieces
of very valuable china contained in two cabinets in the drawing-room;
she also slept in every bed by turns, to keep them all well aired.
These were the two duties with which she intended her young niece
to assist her, and Daisy's soul sickened at the prospect.

But the matter had to be settled at once. The letter had come