"Here's Notya!" Miriam uttered the warning, and began to poke the fire.
The room was entered by a small lady who carried her head well. She had fair, curling hair, serious blue eyes and a mouth which had been puckered into a kind of sternness.
"So you have come back, Helen," she said. "You should have told me. I have been to the road to look for you. You are very late."
"Yes. I'm sorry. I met Dr. Mackenzie."
"He ought to have brought you home."
"He wanted to. I got turbot for Uncle Alfred. It's on the kitchen table."
"Then I expect the cat has eaten it," said Mrs. Caniper with resignation, but her mouth widened delightfully into what might have been its natural shape. "Miriam, go and put it in the larder."
Surreptitiously and in farewell, Miriam dropped the poker on Helen's toes. "Why can't she send you?" she muttered. "It's your turbot."
"But it's your cat."
Wearing what the Canipers called her deaf expression, their stepmother looked at the closing door. "I did not hear what Miriam said," she remarked blandly.