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annoyed with it again, when she rose in gray dark and groped for the matches to light those smelly lamps, and to struggle with the evil spirit that dwelt in the old-fashioned kitchen range, but at the moment, Sue felt a very real affection for the place and a sensation of homecoming such as she had never experienced before.

Chapter Eight
    In spite of Sue’s preoccupation with her new life, she had not forgotten Sandy’s problem but had thought about it quite often as she went about her work or lay in bed at night, and at last she decided to speak to Mr. Darnay about it. She chose a time when he was “awake”—it happened to be breakfast time, and a thin drizzle had started to fall that made painting out of doors impracticable.
    â€œHow long will this last, Miss Bun?” inquired Darnay as she brought in his bacon.
    â€œIt might go on all day,” replied his housekeeper pessimistically, and then, as she saw his face fall, she added, “or it might clear up quite soon.”
    Darnay laughed.
    â€œWell, you never know,” Sue told him. “If the wind got up, it would blow the clouds away.”
    â€œWe must whistle for a wind,” he replied.
    He was looking through his letters as he spoke, and now he pushed them aside distastefully.
    â€œDon’t you like getting letters?” Sue inquired.
    â€œI hate it,” he replied. “Put them into my desk, Miss Bun; they just upset me. Why on earth can’t people leave me alone to get on with my work!”
    â€œBut you haven’t opened them—”
    â€œTake them away,” Darnay said. “I know what’s in them. They want me to go back to London and paint pictures that will sell.”
    Sue took the letters in her hand—they wanted him to go back to London, did they?
    â€œPut them in my desk,” he said. “Put them all there. I’m fed up with letters. I want to get on with my work. I’m fed up with the weather too,” he added ruefully.
    Darnay sat down to his breakfast, but his housekeeper still lingered.
    â€œWould it bother you to hear about my brother?” she inquired somewhat diffidently.
    â€œNo, it wouldn’t,” he replied at once. “What’s the matter with your brother, Miss Bun?”
    Sue launched out into her story and, seeing that Mr. Darnay was interested, she told him the whole thing. He listened patiently and asked several questions, and at last he said, “Has your brother got a definite career in view, or does he just want to go to the university and escape from Beilford?”
    â€œIt’s animals,” Sue declared. “Sandy’s mad for animals. He wants to be a vet, and of course he would have to take his degree—he wants to escape from Beilford too, of course. But you see, Mr. Darnay, the real difficulty is Sandy himself. He’d do anything for peace.”
    â€œTell him to come out here and speak to me,” Darnay said.
    Sue accomplished this quite easily. She sent a note to Sandy by way of Mr. Farquharson, who was now her faithful slave, and the next evening Sandy arrived at Tog’s Mill looking very smart and clean in his best Sunday suit.
    â€œGrace asked me where I was going,” he declared as he came into the kitchen and looked around him with interest. “So I just said I was going to supper at the Andersons’.”
    â€œThere was no need to lie, surely,” said Sue a trifle sternly. “Grace couldn’t have prevented you coming here.”
    â€œShe’d have wanted to know why I was coming and all about it,” Sandy explained.
    Sue sighed. “It’ll maybe mean more trouble for you before you’ve done,” she pointed out. “Grace may find out you weren’t at the Andersons’, and then where will you be? But never mind that now. Mr. Darnay’s waiting for you.”
    She led him into the studio and left him there, for she thought that the interview