“Yes. I came to it for Sheila’s sake, and even when she’s got a job I shall stop on. It will do Janet good and, you know, I don’t think people like myself ought to be in the big towns, if we can reasonably move out. There was a friend of mine buried under her home before I left London; the rescue-party were working for hours before they got her out, and they looked so dirty and tired, and all the time they were working I thought to myself that she could have gone to her daughter in Devonshire, and what a lot of unnecessary work she was making.”

The colonel roared. He was still laughing when Janet and Barbara came out of the house. Barbara kissed the top of his head.

“What’s the joke? I haven’t heard you laugh like that for ages.”

“It wasn’t me,” said Maggie. “I wasn’t being funny.”

The colonel turned to Janet.

“Bring your mother again. She’s better than fifty glasses of milk.”

Janet held out her hands to Maggie.

“Up you get if you want to go to church.”

The colonel stroked Hoover.

“One of the good turns my ulcer’s done me is keepin’ me from hearin’ another of the vicar’s sermons. Shockin’ bore.” He lifted Hoover’s muzzle. “We do a nice bit of psalm singin’ out here, don’t we, old man?”

“Daddy’s an old heathen,” Barbara apologized to Maggie. “For years he had to go to church parades, and now he’s got lazy. I go.”

Maggie laid a hand on the colonel, for he was getting up.

“No, sit still. If I’m going to be allowed to count myself a friend, and pop in when I’m passing, I don’t want any formalities. There’ll be none when you’re well enough to come and see me.”

“Do you like them?” Janet asked her mother directly they were outside the house.

“Now don’t hustle me. You know I’m slow at making friends.”

“Still, you got on all right with the colonel.”

Maggie considered the point.

“I should think he’s a very difficult person not to like.”

Janet put her arm through her mother’s and hugged it to her side.

“You cautious old woman you!”