“Where are you going?”

Judy was feeling pleased with herself. She removed the bread and told him not to waste good food. Then she answered his question.

“It sounds rather nice. Penny and I are to live with the family because-well, I rather gather the cook and butler put all their feet down and said they wouldn’t have us. There are two Miss Pilgrims and an invalid nephew, and the house is called Pilgrim’s Rest. The village is Holt St. Agnes, and-” She got no farther, because Frank rapped the table and said in the loudest voice she had ever heard him use,

“You can’t go there!”

Judy became Miss Elliot. Whilst remaining only just across the table from him, her lifted eyebrows and the expression of the eyes beneath them indicated that he had been relegated to a considerable distance. In a tone of suitable coolness she enquired,

“Why not?”

Frank wasn’t cool at all. The detached and indifferent manner which he affected no longer afforded him any protection. He looked very much taken aback as he said,

“Judy, you mustn’t. I say, don’t look at me like that! You can’t go there.”

“Why can’t I? Is there anything wrong with the Miss Pilgrims? One of them came up to town to see me-I thought she was nice. Do you know them?”

He nodded.

“That would be Miss Columba. She’s all right-at least I suppose she is.” He ran a hand back over his hair and pulled himself together. “Look here, Judy, I’d like to talk to you about this. You know you always said I’d got more cousins than anyone you’d ever heard of, and I suppose I have. Well, one lot lives just outside Holt St. Agnes, and I’ve known the Pilgrims all my life. Roger and I were at school together.”

She said with a zip in her voice, “That probably wasn’t his fault.”

“Don’t be a fool! I’m serious. I want you to listen.