‘Is there no peace, no quiet, no rest?’ cried Uncle Preston, sitting bolt upright and rolling his eyes and gritting his teeth, instead of throwing down the paper and muttering, ‘Who on earth’s that?’ as anyone but a Garden would have done, ‘Who can be wanting to speak to me at this hour of the night? I cannot answer it, Looie. I am sorry, but I cannot. I am too exhausted. I am afraid you must go. Tell them – tell whoever it is – that I am extremely exhausted, and I am afraid that I cannot come to the telephone.’

Auntie Loo put down her knitting, and pattered out into the hall. Mentally, she was making a t-t-t-t-ing noise but she never so indulged herself aloud. You cannot be married to an Uncle Preston and give way to noises expressing nervous exasperation; your thunder, so to speak, is stolen from its birth.

Sophia was rather relieved to hear Auntie Loo’s quiet voice, although she saw immediately that the explanations would now take longer than ever.

She plunged into them at once.

‘Auntie Loo …?’

‘Yes? Is that Sophia? I thought I knew your voice, dear. What is it? Your uncle is rather tired this evening; he has a touch of that nasty asthma. Yes … the fog, I suppose. Such a nuisance. Is it anything important, dear? Can you tell me? and I can give him a message.’

Auntie Loo was one of the few persons in Great Britain over fifty years of age who became neither muddled, flustered nor semi-deaf when listening to facts over the telephone. She composed herself to hear what her niece had to say.

‘Auntie Loo, the mother of a friend of mine has offered to let us her cottage, unfurnished or partly furnished, for thirty-five shillings a week. It’s on the Heath. We all want to live together. Harry and Francis do, too. We want to very much. Do tell Uncle Preston, Auntie Loo. Say I’m awfully sorry to bother him again, but I simply had to tell him about it, and get permission. You see, I want to write to my friend’s mother tonight, and tell her that we’ll take the cottage.’

‘Hold on, dear. I’ll just tell your uncle.’

Auntie Loo went back into the sitting room with a bright look on her face which she was careful to subdue as much as she could. She thought that this was the pleasantest piece of news she had heard for a long time. Poor little things, no doubt they would get into shocking muddles, but it would be very nice for them to be together like that. Brothers and sisters ought to love each other, and to like to live together when they were not married. That was as it should be … and she suppressed a disloyal thought about poor dead Oliver and Hartley, Maxine and dear Preston, who certainly, as brothers and sisters, had not been at all as they should be.