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features and marvellous hair, really golden.
    â€œAunt Pat!” Carol called reproachfully. “I thought I saw you going upstairs to get ready, and here you are, not dressed at all! The car will be here in a moment. Bingham’s bringing it round.”
    â€œThere was some fuss about a parcel,” Patricia explained meekly. “I came down again to see what it was about. I won’t be a moment.”
    We got the two of them off, and Dittie and David started for Manton in their own Daimler. Father went in the Sunbeam on his round of visits, taking Hilda with him. He always paid a number of calls just before Christmas. I think his friends must have found it a bit of a curse, just when they were getting frantic about their holly and their turkeys and their dinner parties, but our great grandfather was quite famous for his Christmas rides on horseback, when he visited the families all round about and distributed largesse in the villages. Father omitted the largesse, but thought the rest of the custom was praiseworthy and ought to be kept up.
    I had noticed George hovering around and wasn’t surprised when he seized upon me, as soon as the others had all cleared off.
    â€œNow, you haven’t anything to do,” he declared. “The Portent is seeing to the missing parcel and the holly and the mistletoe and the flowers for the table and father’s correspondence and all the rest of it! I want a talk with you.”
    He settled himself into his favourite arm-chair in the library and assumed his most ponderous manner.
    â€œNow tell me frankly, Jenny, what you think about Father!”
    I couldn’t help laughing at that. It was so impossible and so George-like.
    â€œJoking apart; I mean his health and—well, the state of his mind. Strikes me the old man’s aged a lot since his illness.”
    I assured George that I thought father’s illness had very little effect on his general health. He certainly looked rather older; walked a little less certainly, though you couldn’t say he tottered; and was more apt to forget things. Perhaps he got tired more quickly, but one couldn’t be sure of that, because the illness had certainly alarmed him and he took more care of himself than ever. He was now apt to fuss about himself a good deal if he felt tired and was making a habit of resting in an easy chair, with his feet on a stool, in the afternoon.
    â€œWell, it may be all right,” said George moodily. “You know, Jennifer, I really think it’s the right thing for you to be here with him. I gathered from Hilda that you were a bit restless.”
    I told George that I was fed to the teeth at being told by the rest of the family that it was my duty to stay at home. I told him, as I had told Eleanor and Edith in the summer, that I was quite sure I did nobody any good by remaining at home, and that I didn’t want to argue about it any more. Of course, none of them knew of Philip’s and my plans, but they seem to have got an inkling that something was in the air.
    â€œAll right, Jenny; I don’t want to bother you,” George said. I think he was afraid I would burst into tears, and this insistence on my staying at home was getting on my nerves so much that I almost felt like it. It made me frightened lest our private plans should somehow fall through. All this opposition, though it wasn’t directed actually against my plans, of course, just made everything seem so difficult. I have made lots of plans in the past for getting away from home and making a career for myself and they have never come off, so I am afraid of failure. But with Philip, who’s a very determined person, to help me, surely this plan ought to turn out successfully.
    There was obviously something else that George wanted to say, but didn’t quite know how to put into words.
    â€œOld Crewkerne hasn’t been here, I suppose?” he inquired at last. Crewkerne is Father’s