will like her," says Dulce, meditatively, laying her
elbows on the table and letting her chin sink into her palms.

"Tell me something about her personally," entreats Portia, turning to
her with some show of interest.

"What can I tell you? She is pretty in her own way, and she agrees with
everyone, and she never means a word she says; and, when she appears
most earnest, that is the time not to believe in her; and she is very
agreeable as a rule, and she is Fabian's pet aversion."

("Not now," says Portia to herself).

"I don't think there is anything else I can tell you," continues Dulce,
with a little nod.

"I wonder you have her," says Miss Vibart, disagreeably impressed by
this description.

"Why, she is our cousin! And, of course, she can come whenever she
wishes--she knows that," says Dulce. "It is not with her, as with you,
you know. You are a joy, she is a duty. But the children _are_ so
sweet."

"How many of them?" asks Portia, who knows a few things she prefers to
children.

"Three. Pussy, Jacky, and the Boodie. The Boodie is nothing short of
perfection."

"That is the one solitary point on which Dulce and I agree," says Roger.
"We both adore the Boodie. Wait till you see her; she is all gold hair,
and blue eyes, and creamy skin, and her nose is a fortune in itself. I
can't think where Julia found her."

"Fabian is so fond of her," says Dulce, whose thoughts never wander very
far from the brother for whose ruined life she grieves incessantly, day
after day.

"How old is she?" asks Portia--"this little beauty you speak of--this
harmony in blue and gold?"

"Five, I think. She is not in the least like her mother, who goes in for
aesthetics, with a face like a French doll, and who will love you
forever, if you will only tell a lie, and say you think she resembles
Ellen Terry."

"With a soul given entirely to French bonnets and Louis Quinze shoes,
she would be thought ultra-mundane," says Sir Mark, who is trying to
make Dulce's little toy terrier, Gilly, stand on his hind legs, in
search of cake.

"My goodness! what a long word," says Dicky Browne, who is now eating
bread and butter, because he has finished the cake. "Does it mean
anything edible? Because if so, I don't quite follow you; _no_ one could
masticate Julia!"

"I hope she will be in a good temper when she comes," says Roger. "Last
time she terrified us all into fits."

"If the children have behaved nicely in the train, and if anyon