look at the flowers. They are very greedy affairs, too,
for really and truly we were eating all the time--tea and iced coffee
when we arrived; ices, and fruits, and nice things to drink until the
moment we came away. I don't mean to say that I ate straight on, of
course, but waiters kept walking about with trays, and I noticed
particularly what they were like, so as not to take two ices running
from the same man. I had a strawberry, and a vanilla, and a lemon--but
that was watery, and I didn't like it. I was talking to the hostess,
when I saw Mr Dudley coming towards us, and he looked at me with such a
blank, unrecognising stare that I saw at once he had no idea who I was.
Mrs Darcy talked to him for a moment while I kept the brim of my hat
tilted over my face, then she said--

"Don't you know Miss Sackville? Allow me to introduce Mr Dudley, dear.
Do take her to have some refreshment, like a good man. I am sure she
has had nothing to eat!"

I thought of the coffee, and the ices, and the lemonade and the
sandwiches, but said nothing, and we sauntered across the lawn together
talking in the usual ridiculous grown-up fashion.

"Lovely day, isn't it?"

"Quite charming. So fortunate for Mrs Darcy."

"Beautiful garden, isn't it?"

"Charming! Such lovely roses!"

"Beautiful band, isn't it?"

"Oh, charming! Quite charming!"

Then he seated me at a little table and provided me with an ice, (number
four), and stared furtively at me from the opposite side. It _was_ fun.
I crinkled my veil up over my nose and tilted my hat over my forehead,
and shot a glance at him every now and then, to find his eyes fixed on
me--not recognising at all, but evidently so puzzled and mystified to
think who I could be. Father had told him only a week before that Vere
would not be home for a month--and now who was this third Miss Sackville
who had suddenly appeared upon the scene?

"You have returned home rather sooner than you intended, haven't you?"
he inquired, and I shook my head and said--

"Oh, no, I kept to the exact date. I always do! What makes you think
otherwise?"

"I--er--I thought I heard you were not expected for some time to come.
You have been staying with friends?"

"Oh, a number of friends! Quite a huge house party. I feel quite lost
without them all."

He would have been rather surprised if I had explained that the party
consisted of forty women and no man, but that was not his business, and
it was