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Great sprawling Michaelmas daisies and sunflowers. Pink and white anemones. Snapdragon and mignonette growing among the roses. And a lot of other half gone-over things whose names he didn’t pretend to know. And the roses! The place was fairly smothered with them! They certainly throve—the air was quite heavy with their scent. But how unpruned, how completely out of hand! They would certainly have to go. The place was a wilderness. And the climbers on the lodge must be drastically reduced.
    It was at this point that something stirred in the undergrowth and Lucifer, late Smut, emerged, walking delicately, black tail uplifted, eyes glowing like jewels in the sun. Mr. Random did not like cats. He said, “Shoo!” Lucifer sprang, did an exciting kind of twist in mid air, came down at right angles, and made off like a flash of black lightning with his tail in a double kink. Scheherazade sunning herself on the windowsill watched unmoved, but Toby, a very ugly cat with abnormally long hind legs and only one ear, jumped down and vanished into a tangle of mint and lavender. He had been kicked and illtreated in his youth before Emmeline rescued him, and he did not quite forget it. When people said “Shoo!” he shoo’d. There were three other cats in sight, but they did not take any notice. Arnold Random looked bleakly at them and let the knocker fall rather hard against Emmeline’s front door.
    She had quite a small kitten in her arms as she opened it. Its mother, a pretty grey half-Persian, walked beside her, mewing in a plaintive manner. Emmeline wore a blue smock. Her fair hair was not as tidy as it might have been. She had been turning out her little back room, and that had meant moving Amina and her kittens. Amina didn’t like it at all, and one of the kittens had crawled under the tallboy which had come to her from the same grandmother as the piano, and wouldn’t come out. Amina was rapidly becoming distracted, and it was really a most inconvenient moment for Arnold to call. She would not, of course, have dreamed of letting him know this, so she smiled her sweet, vague smile and said, “How kind of you! Do come in!”
    Amina’s basket was, quite temporarily, in the middle of the drawing-room floor. A small shrieking kitten scrabbled at the edge in a frantic effort to escape. Emmeline pushed it back, gave it the one she was holding for company, and carried the basket through to the kitchen, followed by Amina, who walked processionally with her tail stiffly erect and mourned in a really piercing manner.
    The noise died down, and Emmeline shut two doors and made her apologies.
    “I am so sorry, Arnold. She doesn’t like the kittens being moved.”
    “So I observed.”
    Emmeline had long ceased to expect warmth from Arnold, but he was not always quite as bleak as this. He was going to be difficult, and she would never get the back room done, to say nothing of the kitten under the tallboy. Trying to look on the bright side, it occurred to her that it might get tired of being there and come out. She folded her hands in her lap and gazed attentively at her brother-in-law. Quite impossible to look at him without seeing that he was put out. Men were rather easily put out by house-cleaning and things being out of their proper place. Even her dear Jonathan, who was always so good-tempered— Her thoughts broke off, because Arnold said,
    “I am told that Edward is here.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    “I am informed that Lord Burlingham is giving him the agency.”
    “Oh, yes—so kind of him.”
    “Indeed? It had not struck me in that light. If I had to find a word to describe Lord Burlingham’s behaviour I think I should have used the epithet ‘impertinent.’ But there is no need for us to discuss the matter. It merely occurred to me to wonder what arrangement Edward intended to make. I understand that Mr. Barr is to retain the agent’s house, and I must say I should not consider it at all suitable for Edward to lodge in the