Audrey listened eagerly. She had learnt one great lesson—not to trust entirely to her own opinion and she was very, very anxious to learn what was right, and to do it.
Mrs. Carlyle looked at her smiling. "Don't you think it is often a help to ask oneself, 'what would I like others to do to me? What would I myself prefer?'" But Audrey coloured painfully, as the thought of her own return home came back to her. How entirely she had lost sight of the love and the welcome in her care about external appearances. She was silent so long that her mother looked at her anxiously more than once.
"I think you are very tired, aren't you, dear?"
"Oh no, mother."
"Perhaps you need a holiday. Would you like to go back with granny to Farbridge for a week or two?"
"Oh no, mother, no I don't want any holiday. I don't want anything to do but stay here. Oh, mother." Her secret hovered on the tip of her tongue, her longing to confide in her mother almost overcame all her other feelings, but she checked herself. "Oh mother," she added lamely, "I want to do so much but—but——"
A voice came calling up the stairs, "Audrey, Audrey, are you coming to give me my dinner, or am I to dine alone?" Mr. Carlyle put his head in round the door. "Don't you think the remnant of the crew should cling together?" Then kissing his wife and lifting away her tray, he drew Audrey's hand through his arm and made for the door.
"Audrey will tell you of the plans we have been hatching," Mrs. Carlyle called after them. "Come up here when you have finished your dinner and tell me what you think about them."
"Mother thought that now would be a good time to ask granny here to stay," said Audrey.
"Did she!" Mr. Carlyle looked up with almost boyish pleasure on his face. Audrey was surprised. She had not dreamed that he would care so much.