“Mrs. Brain, darling, do let Dr. Nelson see you. You are too thin, and perhaps he’ll order you milk, and then I can hold your example up to Daddy, for I know you’d drink it like a martyr.”

The colonel looked under his chair and saw the empty glass dish. He slipped it back on to the table and gave Hoover a grateful pat.

“You wait, Mrs. Brain. I’ll bet at the end of a fortnight you find it as difficult to get it down as I do.”

Maggie felt the blood flowing back into her hands. Barbara’s arm lay near her, she gave it a grateful pat. Of course the child was right. Milk, and perhaps a tonic, was what she needed. She turned to the doctor.

“I suppose I must give in to my daughter or I shall have no peace. I am a little thinner. Overhauling is a ridiculous waste of your time, I’m afraid, but you’ve daughters of your own and you know what bullies daughters are.”

The doctor took out his notebook.

“I’ll be along tomorrow morning, bringing the dill with me, and unless I’m very much mistaken it’s a herb you’ll be very glad to have got to know.”

The doctor had to get off after tea, and the two girls went indoors, for Barbara wanted Janet’s advice about a frock. The colonel looked contentedly at their arms linked in each other’s.

“That’s just what Barbara needs, a friend to talk frocks and things with.”

Maggie was still taut at the thought of the doctor’s visit; she was glad to chat and distract her mind.

“Very nice for Janet too, though actually Sheila’s the one to advise on frocks. It’s queer, but now I come to think of it Janet’s never had a close friend. You know how it is in London. A girl goes to an office miles from where she lives, and the friends she makes may live an hour’s journey away.”

“Do you miss London? Always thought it a noisy hole myself, but I know Londoners see it differently.”

Maggie smiled; she lay back in her chair, her eyes on the colonel’s lovely twisted chimneys and mellowed roof.

“I came to London as a bride. My husband hadn’t much money. He had rented a little house—just three bedrooms, two at the back and a big one in front. We had a laburnum and a may tree in the garden. Both my babies were born in that front bedroom, and my husband died there. That little house and that street is all London to me.”

The colonel’s voice was so gentle it was no more disturbing to Maggie’s thoughts than the twittering of the birds, or the buzz of a passing bee.

“You been without him long?”