Miss Lane was downstairs and alone in the kitchen, with her feet on the fender, sipping a cup of tea. Laura had expected she would be annoyed at being disturbed before her official hours, but she did not even seem to be surprised, and in a few moments had Mrs. Macey in a chair by the fire and was holding a cup of hot tea to her lips. “Come. Drink this,” she said. “Then tell me about it.” Then to Laura, who had already reached the door on her way back to her sorting, “Tell Zillah not to begin cooking breakfast until I tell her to,” and, as an afterthought: “Say she is to go upstairs and begin getting my room ready for turning out,” a message which, when delivered, annoyed Zillah exceedingly, for she knew and she knew Laura would guess that the upstairs work was ordered to prevent listening at keyholes.

The sorting was finished, the postman had gone reluctantly out, five minutes late, and old Mrs. Gubbins was pretending to hunt for a lost piece of string in order to delay her own exit when Miss Lane came in and carefully shut the door after her. “What? Not out yet, Mrs. Gubbins?” she asked coldly, and Mrs. Gubbins responded to the hint, banging the door behind her as the only possible expression of her frustrated curiosity.

“Here’s a pretty kettle of fish! We’re in a bit of a fix, Laura. Mrs. Macey won’t be able to do her round this morning. She’s got to go off by train at once to see her husband, who’s dangerously ill. She’s gone home now to get Tommy up and get ready. She’s taking him with her.”

“But I thought her husband was abroad,” said the puzzled Laura.