the door of No. 24, with Diana and a large quantity of luggage on board,
the former found herself met in the hall by a cheerful little person with
pretty brown eyes and a friendly smile to whom she took an instant liking.

Miss Bunting escorted Diana up to her rooms on the second floor, while
Henri brought up the rear, staggering manfully beneath the weight of Miss
Quentin's trunk.

A cheerful fire was blazing in the grate, and that, together with the
daffodils that gleamed from a bowl on the table like a splash of gold,
gave the room a pleasant and welcoming appearance.

"But, surely," said Diana hesitatingly, "you are not Mrs. Lawrence?"

Miss Bunting laughed, outright.

"Oh, dear no," she answered. "Mrs. Lawrence is out, and she asked me to
see that you had everything you wanted. I'm the lady-help, you know."

Diana regarded her commiseratingly. She seemed such a jolly, bright
little thing to be occupying that anomalous position.

"Oh, are you? Then it was you"--with a sudden, inspiration--"who put
these lovely daffodils here, wasn't it? . . . Thank you so much for
thinking of it--it was kind of you." And she held out her hand with the
frank charm of manner which invariably turned Diana's acquaintances into
friends inside ten minutes.

Little Miss Bunting flushed delightedly, and from that moment onward
became one of the new boarder's most devoted adherents.

"You'd like some tea, I expect," she said presently. "Will you have it
up here--or in the dining-room with the other boarders in half an hour's
time?"

"Oh, up here, please. I can't possibly wait half an hour."

"I ought to tell you," Miss Bunting continued, dimpling a little, "that
it will be sixpence extra if you have it up here. '_All meals served in
rooms, sixpence extra_,'" she read out, pointing to the printed list of
rules and regulations hanging prominently above the chimney-piece.

Diana regarded it with amusement.

"They ought to be written on tablets of stone like the Ten Commandments,"
she commented frivolously. "It rather reminds me of being at school
again. I've never lived in a boarding-house before, you know; I had
rooms in the house of an old servant of ours. Well, here
goes!"--twisting the framed set of rules round with its face to the wall.
"Now, if I break the laws of the Medes and Persians I can't be blamed,
because I haven't read them."

Miss Bunting privately thought that the new boarder, recommended by so
gre