The other three followed swiftly but silently, for Anna was at home and in her bedroom, resting, preparatory to going to a party that evening—­ the break-up party at Hillside—­at least she was supposed to be resting.  Her sharp ears, though, were ever on the alert, and if she guessed what was going on, she would come out and spoil everything.  Mrs. Pike was shopping—­buying gloves, and elastic for Anna’s shoes, and a few trifles for herself, for she too was going to the party.

The kitchen was very snug and warm and full of business, as well as savoury odours, when they reached it.  Fanny had a large Christmas cake out cooling on the table, and mince pies and tartlets all ready to go into the oven, while on a clean white cloth at one end of the table were laid half a dozen large saffron cakes and a lot of saffron nubbies to cool.

“O Fanny, how I adore you!” cried Dan, hugging her warmly.  “No one in the world reads my thoughts as you do.  The one thing I wanted at this moment was a nubby, and here it is.”  And seizing a couple he began to eat them with a rapidity that was positively alarming.  “I know, though you don’t say much, that you are overjoyed to see me home again; I can see it in your eyes.  The house is a different place when I am home, isn’t it?”

“It is different certainly,” said Fanny with emphasis and a sniff, but not quite the emphasis Dan had asked for.  Her coolness did not put him out, though.  Fanny had a soft spot in her heart for him, and he knew it, the scamp; but though Dan was perhaps her favourite, at any rate for the moment, the others benefited by the favour shown to him.

“I knew you would feel it,” he said sympathetically; “I was afraid it would tell on you.  How thin you have gone, Fanny,” with an anxious glance at Fanny’s plump cheeks.

“Get along with your iteming.  Master Dan,” she said severely.  “I should have thought they’d have learnt you better at school; and if anybody’d asked me, I should have said that the kitchen wasn’t the place for young gentlemen.”

“But nobody has asked you,” said Dan.  “And how,” melodramatically, “could you expect me to keep away when you are here, and I smelt new saffron cake?”

“And how do you expect me to do all I’ve a-got to do with the lot of you thronging up every inch of my kitchen?” she went on, ignoring his flattery.

“Ask me another,” said Dan, handing nubbies the while to all the others.  “I give that one up.  But I knew you would be frightfully cut up if I didn’t come.”

Fanny snorted in a most contemptuous manner, and tossed her head with great scorn.  “Oh!  I’d have managed to survive it, I dare say, and I don’t suppose I should break down if you was to go.”

“Do you know, Fanny dear,” said Dan, suddenly growing very serious, “when I went away I never expected to see you still in this dear old kitchen when I came home, and the thought nearly broke my heart; it did really.  I didn’t think you could have stood—­you know who, so long.”