Gladys was queer these days. She had a look of somebody who is waiting for something. She reminded Janet of a girl with whom she had been at school, who used to waggle her head and try and look important, and say, “I know something, but I’m not telling you, Janet Brain.”

Iris was improving in health because she was happy with Janet. Gladys, by her lack of understanding of her temperament, had strained the child’s nerves. Janet was like a soothing dressing on a burn. Iris explained this in her own way to her father one Sunday when she was as usual accompanying him on that farmer’s function, the Sunday afternoon walk. It was a fine day, but there was a sharp wind, which had kept Gladys indoors, for she loathed being blown about. Donald strode along in his Sunday clothes of grey flannel trousers and a sweater, with a stick under his arm. He had on no hat and the wind had made his thatch of brown hair look as though a hen had been scratching in it. Four well-trained dogs followed at his heels. Iris, with a navy jersey over her white Sunday frock, and a blue beret on the side of her head, trotted and sometimes ran to keep up with him.

“It’s not that I learn an awful lot from Janet, not like I did from Mummy, but she’s kind of comfortable, like a teddy bear in bed. Do you know that feeling, Daddy?”

“I don’t take teddy bears to bed much, but I know just what you mean about Janet.”

Iris gave a hop and a skip to catch up with him.

“She doesn’t really know very much at all, you know, except things like Mrs. Honeywell and Gladys do, cleaning and cooking and sewing. All them plaguey things that make a woman wholly tired.”

Donald laughed.

“She doesn’t seem to have cured you of quoting Mrs. Honeywell.”

Iris dismissed this criticism as of no importance.

“Do you suppose, Daddy, that she’ll ever have to go away?”

“Would you like her to stop with us always?”

“Awfully I would. She isn’t going away to be a sailor, but likely she’ll want to better herself.”

Donald had been smiling, but the smile left his face at Iris’ last words, and his brown eyes were hard.

“What makes you, or perhaps I should say Mrs. Honeywell, say that?”

“I don’t know; I think it must have been something that Janet said to Mrs. Honeywell, that’s what makes me frightened. Do you feel funny inside when you think of her going away? I do, Daddy.”

Donald beheaded a thistle with his stick.

“You’ll lay up trouble for yourself, young woman, if you love people too much. Some idols when you come to look at them closely have clay feet.”

“What’s an idol?”

“Something you worship.”