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began to think about the people there. Miss Columba coming into the hall to meet them. Rather a shock after only seeing her in town, large and quite normally covered up in a fur coat and a felt hat. In sprawling birdseye tweeds she looked immense, with an orange sweater up to her double chin and thick curly grey hair cut almost as short as a man’s.
    Perfectly enormous hands and feet, and even less to say for herself than at their previous meeting. But quite nice and kind-the sort of kindness that expects to be taken for granted, and takes you for granted too. Very difficult to connect her as a sister with Miss Janetta, sitting in the sofa corner working at a tambour frame with a small frail white hand which looked as if it had never in its life done anything more practical than embroidery. The one thing that she and Miss Collie had in common was the curl in their hair, but Miss Netta’s was silver-white where Miss Collie’s was iron-grey, and she wore it in the most elaborate rolls, and curls, and twirls. And not one of them looking as if it could get out of place if it tried. Judy had wondered how long they took to do, and could make an approximate guess when she was informed that Miss Netta’s room could never be done till twelve o’clock, as she breakfasted in bed, and did not leave it until then-“I’m a sad invalid. I’m afraid I give a great deal of trouble.”
    Judy thought she didn’t look in the least ill, with those blue eyes and pink cheeks, but of course you never could tell. Some of the colour was make-up, and very well done. She suspected that her personal appearance was one of Miss Netta’s preoccupations, the other two being her embroidery and her health.
    Roger Pilgrim-she had sat through a meal with him but they hadn’t exchanged a word except the bare conventional “How do you do?” If Miss Janetta didn’t look ill, Roger certainly did. And nervous. His hand shook when he lifted his glass, his eyes looked here and there, he jumped when a door banged. Having come in late for the meal, he disappeared as soon as it was over, with a hasty “I’ll go and have a cigarette with Jerome.” When she came to think of it Judy couldn’t remember that he had spoken at all between his “How do you do?” to her and this excuse to get out of the room.
    The invalid cousin’s name naturally brought Miss Day into her mind. Lona-that’s what they all called her-the nurse who looked after Captain Pilgrim and Miss Netta. She didn’t dress like a nurse, because Captain Pilgrim hated things that rustled and Miss Netta found the uniform inartistic. So there was Miss Day with a skirt of russet tweed and a soft yellow jumper. Not very young, but she had a good figure, and the jumper showed it off. Not goodlooking exactly-a peaked, pale face, greenish hazel eyes, and a lot of chestnut hair- rather good hair. There was some likeness-something odd and elusive-Judy couldn’t place it. It stayed in her mind in the irritating niggling way that sort of thing does. But she was quite sure she had never seen Lona Day before-she would have remembered her if she had. Something warm and interested in her manner. She seemed really to care about Penny, and about Nora and John. It wasn’t Judy who mentioned them, it was Miss Janetta. Lona Day hadn’t said a word, but Judy felt as if she cared. She had talked very nicely about Captain Pilgrim.
    “I’m afraid his room is going to be rather tiresome for you. You will have to do it whilst he is in the bathroom, but that will give you quite half an hour, because he shaves there as well as having his bath. He wouldn’t shave for a long time because of the scar, but I am so glad he has begun now. He’s so sensitive about the disfigurement, and it’s so bad for him, poor fellow.”
    “Doesn’t he come down at all?”
    “Oh, yes, he does as a rule-on his good days. But it really is an ordeal for him to meet a stranger, and he’s dreadfully afraid of frightening your little