-room, which certainly looked a
chaos--with dusty chairs, tables, half-emptied hampers, books, pictures,
all jumbled up together with no sort of arrangement, just as the men had
deposited them from the vans. Here, however, she paused, slightly taken
aback by the sight of another dark head, which raised itself over the
sofa-cushions, while another pair of brown eyes regarded her with equal
astonishment.

'It is only Kester,' whispered Mollie. 'I think he was asleep. Kester,
Miss Ross kindly wishes to help us a little--but--did you ever see such
a place?' speaking in a tone of disgust and shrugging her shoulders.

'Mollie can't be everywhere,' rejoined the boy, trying to drag himself
off the sofa as he spoke, and then Audrey saw he was a cripple.

He looked about fifteen, but his long, melancholy face had nothing
boyish about it. The poor lad was evidently a chronic sufferer; there
was a permanent look of ill-health stamped on his features, and the
beautiful dark eyes had a plaintive look in them.

'Mollie does her best,' he went on almost irritably; 'but she and Cyril
have been busy upstairs getting up the beds and that sort of thing, so
they could not turn their hand to all this lumber,' kicking over some
books as he spoke.

'Mollie is very young,' returned Audrey, feeling she must take them
under her protection at once, and, as usual, acting on her impulse. 'Is
your name Kester? What an uncommon name! but I like it somehow. I am so
sorry to see you are an invalid, but you can get about a little on
crutches?'

'Sometimes, not always, when my hip is bad,' was the brief response.

'Has it always been so?' in a pitying voice.

'Well, ever since I was a little chap, and Cyril dropped me. I don't
know how it happened; he was not very big, either. It is so long ago
that I never remember feeling like other fellows'; and Kester sighed
impatiently and kicked over some more books. 'There I go, upsetting
everything; but there is no room to move. We had our dinner, such as it
was, in the kitchen--not that I could eat it, eh, Mollie?'

Mollie shook her head sadly.

'You have not eaten a bit to-day. Cyril promised to bring in some buns
for tea; but I daresay he will forget all about it.'

A sudden thought struck Audrey: these two poor children did look so
disconsolate. Mollie's tired face was quite dust-begrimed; she had been
crying, too, probably with worry and over-fatigue, for the reddened
eyelids betrayed her.

'I