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Wysdom Brothers that he should take the morning off to visit his dentist.
    She was an old friend and ally whom he had known as a neighbour in the Suffolk village of Dancing.
    “
I will wait for you in a park called Garden Green
,” she had written. “
On the map it looks nice and near the station and the train gets in at nine. I am sorry to bother you but I think someone living in London ought to be told where I shall be. I will explain when I see you. If it’s raining we’ll find a Church to talk in. I mean I shan’t come down on you for tea or food
.”
    Her directness amused him. It was one of the reasons he had always liked the child. She had a sound grasp of essentials. He had decided to buy her an ice.
    He was considering this particular aspect of the problem when unexpectedly he saw her. He stopped in full stride, his ideas undergoing sudden and drastic change.
    “Hullo Richard,” said Annabelle demurely.
    “Hullo,” he echoed cautiously, and added abruptly, “what are you dressed up like that for?”
    The faintest of smiles, fleeting and content, passed over the remarkable mouth and she made room on the seat beside her.
    “I thought you’d be surprised. You haven’t seen me for two years and five months. It’s Jenny’s coat. I—er—I think I look pretty good.”
    Richard sat down. “I hardly recognised you,” he said stiffly.
    Annabelle remained content. “It’s my hair,” she explained calmly. “I had it done properly while I was about it. I’m trying to look as old as I possibly can.”
    “So I see.” He spoke gloomily. He was mourning a very pleasant child who had been a good friend to him some three years before, when an agony of calf-love for her elder sister Jennifer had rendered him in great need of sane companionship. This new Annabelle had blossomed like a whole flower -bed, apparently, overnight, and looked to his interested eye as if she might cause a heap of trouble for almost anybody.
    To his surprise she laid a hand on his.
    “Don’t be silly,” she said. “It’s still me.”
    He laughed gratefully, recovering a modicum of his superiority.
    “I’m glad about that. They know at home that you’re here, I hope? You’re not up to anything fantastic, like trying to go on the stage or anything?”
    “No.” She was unoffended. “It’s more complicated than that. That’s why I wanted to see you, somebody reliable. Jenny knows I’m here of course, and that means that Medico Mike does too, but we couldn’t trouble Mother. She’s far too ill.”
    Her mention of Dr. Michael Robinson, his successful rival for the affections of her elder sister, reassured Richard somewhat. That mature stuffed shirt was at least hard-headed.
    “I heard about your mother,” he said awkwardly. “I’m awfully sorry. Isn’t she any better? I didn’t like to ask.”
    “I’m afraid she can’t ever be. It was a stroke, you see.” Annabelle eyed him gratefully. “It doesn’t really help to talk about it. Jenny’s been wonderful. She won’t think of marrying Mike until … well, until it’s all over. The other two are at school, still, and I’ve just left. I can’t do what Jenny’s doing because it’s a tremendous feat to pay the bills out of the income, so I was going to get a job right away. Then the letter turned up and I thought I’d better be the one to answer it, and so here I am.”
    “So I see.” He was finding it difficult to take his gaze from her face. “What letter was this?”
    “Here.” She produced a plump envelope from her coat pocket and handed it to him. “See what you think. It was addressed to Mother but Jenny had to deal with it. You’ll have to read it all, I’m afraid, or you’ll never get the drift.”
    Richard took the packet dubiously. There seemed to be a lot of letter, pages of it scribbled in an untidy but purposeful hand.
    “7 Garden Green,
    London, W.2.
    “My dear Alice,” it began, “You may not have heard of me but I should not be