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coaxed into their small print dresses, every dress a different pattern, their sandals buckled and a clean handkerchief pushed into each pocket. Just as she finished a bell clanged.
    “Brekker,” said Rita.
    “ Who got it?” asked Gwen.
    “Elvira is back,” informed Cathy.
    She was rather abashed to hear, “Now we’ll have something proper to eat. Elvira will fix something. ”
    So could I have fixed something if there had been anything to fix , she thought as she shepherded the children downstairs. I only hope they won't be disappointed when it's toast again.
    But it wasn’t toast again. It was cereal and milk, poached eggs, bread and jam. Cathy’s eyes widened and Elvira beamed, “I told you Dr. Jerry would get to work even before he took his hat off. A local woman was here when I came back from taking up your tea. She’ll stay till we’re fixed up.”
    “And the provisions?”
    “They were in a clothesbasket on the doorstep.”
    “And the jam,” rejoiced Gwen, “is strawberry. Now we needn’t raid any old cupboards.”
    Cathy supervised the meal, discouraging the too-lavish use of little fingers instead of knives and forks and insisting on the neat folding afterward of table napkins.
    “Do the bigger girls make their own beds?” she asked Elvira in a whisper.
    “Yes, and help the littleys with theirs. Then they tidy up, but usually it takes the housemother all the morning to do what they leave undone.”
    Cathy smiled. “It was like that in England. It must be universal. What about school?”
    “They are on holidays this week, which is a good thing really. It will give you time to settle down with them and time, too, to decide who is to go to which school.”
    “How old is the eldest here? My... our ... eldest, Janet, is fourteen.”
    “Rita is fifteen and a half. She’ll be found a position and suitable accommodation in another few months. Of course she will be hopping back here most weekends. They always do. T here’s even a wing reserved for the old girls.”
    “What happens if a ward is ... ” Cathy hesitated for the right words, “if he or she is especially talented?”
    “You mean like Dr. Jerry?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then they stay on and are financed through their training. Is it like that in England?”
    “Yes.”
    The beds made, the bedrooms tidied, the towels hung up in rows, Cathy took the children out of doors. Most of the original residents were friendly now and eager to show the swimming pool, the playcourt and their individual gardens.
    The pool was a small one, shallow except for one end, where it would be waist-deep for the older girls. Cathy believed she would have no trouble coping with swimming drill. The play courts consisted of basketball at one end and a swing, slippery slide and seesaw at the other. The gardens, to her delight, were childishly higgledy-piggledly. Each girl had chosen her own design and selected her own plants.
    She left the children to their personal diversions and went slowly back to the house. “It seems a wise home,” she said, “in spite of Dr. Malcolm’s insinuations.”
    She saw that a car was pulled up in front of the entrance, and for a moment she knew a foolish impulse to turn back again. It was a green car—Then she saw it was not a big convertible and went in feeling rather annoyed with herself. Even if it was the doctor’s car she could not run away. There was no cause to. He was as indifferent to her as she was to him. Besides, she had to meet him sometimes. From Elvira’s account he was a fairly frequent visitor to Redgates. She turned into the hall.
    A substantial figure dressed in “best black” was bent over a cupboard. Elvira stood behind her and greeted Cathy with a significant wink and grimace. Cathy guessed at once that the woman must be the disliked Mrs. Jessopp.
    Mrs. Jessopp straightened, and Cathy introduced herself. “I am sorry we have to meet and part so quickly,” she said politely. She was anxious to avoid the