I went into a children's hospital for training, and spent some years
there. Then when that came to an end, I took a holiday; but I found I
wanted children. So I cast about me, and finally answered Mr. Lorimer's
advertisement and came here." She began to smile. "At least I have
plenty of children now."

"Oh, I say!" broke in Piers. "What a perfectly horrible life you've had!
You don't mean to say you're happy, what?"

Avery laughed. "I'm much too busy to think about it. And now I really
must run back. I've promised to take charge of the babies this afternoon.
Good-bye!" She held out her hand to him with frank friendliness, as if
she divined the sympathy he did not utter.

He gripped it hard for a moment. "Thanks awfully for being so decent as
to tell me!" he said, looking back at her with eyes as frank as her own.
"I'm going on down to the home farm. Good-bye!"

He raised his cap, and abruptly strode away. And in the moment of his
going Avery found she liked him better than she had liked him
throughout the interview, for she knew quite well that he went only in
deference to her wish.

She turned to retrace her steps, feeling puzzled. There was something
curiously attractive about the young man's personality, something that
appealed to her, yet that she felt disposed to resist. That air of the
ancient Roman was wonderfully compelling, too compelling for her taste,
but then his boyishness counteracted it to a very great degree. There was
a hint of sweetness running through his arrogance against which she was
not proof. Audacious he might be, but it was a winning species of