At Bute Lodge they found everything very nice and comfortable. Mrs. Jermy and Mrs. Beadon (as Milly was to be called), who had come earlier in the morning with a cabful of yesterday's purchases, had carried out Lettice's instructions to the letter. The best room in the house looked out upon a delightful garden landscape—two borders, backed by well-grown box and bay-trees, holly, Irish yews, and clambering roses, with a lessening crowd of herbaceous plants in front, dwindling down to an edge of brilliant annuals on either side; and between these a long and level lawn, broken near the house by a lofty deodara, and ending in a bowling-green, and a thickly-planted bank of laurels, beyond which lay a far-off vista of drooping fruit-trees. The garden was reached through a small conservatory built outside a French window at one end of the room, and a low verandah ran along the remainder of the garden front.
Inside, all was as Lettice had planned it. A square writing table in front of the window was covered with a dozen of the books which had made most noise during the past season, with the November magazines, and the weekly papers which Alan had been wont to read. Milly had cut them all over night, and here they lay, with an easy-chair beside them, ready to tempt the student when he felt inclined and able to read. That was not just yet; but Alan saw the pile, and darted at his guardian angel another look of gratitude from his lustrous, melancholy eyes.
"Why, here," he said, looking round the room and out upon the garden, "a man must get well only too soon! I shall steadily refuse to mend."
"You will not be able to help yourself," said Lettice. "Now you are going to be left alone——"
"Not alone!"
"For half an-hour at the very least. All this floor belongs to you, and you are to have nothing to do with stairs. When you want anything you are to ring this bell, and Milly, whom you saw when we came in, will attend on you. Here, on this sideboard, are wine, and biscuits, and jelly, and grapes. Sit down and let me give you a glass of wine. We will have some lunch at one, tea at four, and dinner at seven—but you are to be eating grapes and jelly in between. The doctor will come and see you every morning."
"What doctor?"
"Why, the doctor of the Establishment, to be sure!"
"Oh, this is an Establishment?"
"Yes."