“And Sir Humphrey is a very nice gentleman. Wonderful interested in everything to do with the land like a gentleman ought to be, and does very well at it too, so Miss Barbara says. They’ve got a boy of eight and a half, and a little girl of five-a real little love. But of course I couldn’t leave Mr. Jim, so I recommended my niece. And if Miss Barbara has a mind to come up to town and stay over, well, there’s her room always ready, and no need to let us know. She’s got her key and can just walk in.” Ione checked the thought that it was just as well that Barbara hadn’t walked in at, say, four o’clock in the morning to find a strange girl in her bed.

Nannie went on talking. By the time Ione was dressed, with a pair of Barbara’s stockings to take the place of her ruined ones, she knew what an old and distinguished firm of architects Jim Severn belonged to. There were two uncles in it, and one of them wouldn’t be very long before he retired, and then Mr. Jim would go up a step.

“His father died when the children were still in the nursery-him and Miss Barbara-and their mother married again. But she didn’t live long either, so you may say they never had anyone but each other, Mr. Jim and Miss Barbara.” Ione listened, but she had to think as well. The first thing to be done was to ring up Wanetree and placate Norris, who would certainly be feeling fierce about her failure either to return or to let them know that she was not coming back last night. She ought to have done it before really-not in the middle of the night, but more or less at crack of dawn, which at this time of year would be getting on for a quarter to eight.

Norris was Cousin Eleanor’s maid, and a domestic tyrant of forty years’ standing. She answered the call in a very bad temper indeed and scolded Ione as if she were five years old.