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too thin; ‘Underweight,’ said Doctor Harwell, ‘and under-nourished.’
    ‘Well, I can guess they lived on bread and tea.’ Admiral Twiss was vexed with himself. ‘Mrs Lovell had probably grown too old to cook.’
    ‘It seems the child wouldn’t eat the school dinners. Her teacher thinks the other children told her that hers weren’t paid for.’
    ‘Not only that,’ said Mr Blount, who had come up to the House about Kizzy. ‘She tore her meat with her fingers and that shocked them.’
    ‘I ought to have thought about food,’ said the Admiral. ‘I knew the child was there, but one scarcely ever saw her.’
    Now Peters was building Kizzy up – in every way. ‘Drink this up, saucepot.’ ‘Now I don’t want a crumb left of that.’ He kept her room clean and polished, with
a fire that burned day and night; when it was dusk Kizzy lay and watched the firelight flickering on the walls and ceiling. The fire made work; Peters had to carry coals up twice a day, ‘but
an electric fire dries the air,’ said Peters. ‘Not good for her lungs.’
    When he was busy, Nat came and sat with her. He rubbed her back – ‘Coo! your bones stick out like a chicken’s,’ said Nat – and told her stories of the horses he had
looked after: of Royal who had run in the Derby and the Admiral’s favourite show hunter, Rainbird. ‘Best of all classes at Richmond. I’ll show you his cups and some of the
rosettes when you are well,’ but even Nat’s stories were not as good as the Admiral’s, especially the one about Joe. He told Kizzy how Joe had been foaled – ‘Must be
twenty-eight years ago. He’s one of the oldest horses I have ever seen,’ – foaled on a farm in Antrim, ‘which is in Ireland.’ How he had been trained as a hunter,
lunged over fences and, as a five-year-old, been taken to Dublin for the Summer Show How he had been bought and travelled on the ferry to England, and of the cups and rosettes he, like Rainbird,
had won. How, one day, Joe had put his foot in a rabbit hole and broken a bone in his fetlock, ‘so he couldn’t jump any more.’ Then how Kizzy’s grandfather had bought Joe in
a sale and Joe had pulled the wagon along the country lanes in England, following the strawberry, hops and apple picking from Kent to Worcestershire and back again, but always landing up in the
Admiral’s orchard to spend the winter, until at last he had stayed there all the time with Gran. It was a made-up story, of course, ‘But it might have been Joe?’ asked Kizzy.
‘It easily might,’ said the Admiral.
    Every morning he would wrap her in the camel hair dressing gown and carry her to the window and Nat brought Joe, in his halter, on to the drive below. Then the Admiral would put Kizzy in a small
rocking chair – she was allowed to sit up now – tuck a rug round her and Peters would bring their ‘elevenses’ on a silver tray, a mug of milk for Kizzy, coffee for the
Admiral, and they would have them together. These days of convalescence were perhaps the happiest Kizzy had ever known. With Gran she had been content, but now she was radiantly happy until she had
– ‘visitors’ said Kizzy.
    ‘I am Kizzy Lovell’s teacher. May I see her, please?’ It was Peters’ afternoon out and when the bell rang, Admiral Twiss answered the door. ‘You
would never have been let in, else,’ said Mrs Cuthbert.
    ‘It isn’t curiosity,’ Mrs Blount told the Admiral quickly and, ‘What could I do but let her in,’ he told Peters afterwards.
    ‘Kizzy,’ said the Admiral when he had opened the bedroom door. ‘Your teacher has come to see you,’ but where was Kizzy? At the word ‘teacher’ she had dived to
the bottom of the bed under the bedclothes. ‘School doesn’t seem to be popular,’ said the Admiral.
    Mrs Blount was distressed. ‘I tried, indeed I did, but some of them teased her, children can be cruel. Perhaps if I had done what Miss Brooke said . . .’
    ‘What did she