sky.

"Why, isn't that partly what you come to Newport for?" I asked.

They all laughed. "You just wait and find out," answered Potter. "And
we'll work you pretty hard doing it."

Mrs. Ess Kay and Sally took me up to show me my room and theirs, and
Potter said that he would go round and look in at the Casino, but he
would come back and have tea with us, as soon as he had seen "what
there was doing."

Each bedroom is done in a colour, and mine is the "white room." It was
almost too heavy-sweet with some powerful flower fragrance, when we
went in. For an instant I could not think what it was; but in another
moment I had seen on tables and cabinets and window shelves, great
bowls of water lilies, rising out of their dark leaves like moons out
of cloud banks.

"From Potter," said Mrs. Ess Kay. "He telegraphed for them to be here,
and sent word to the servants just how he wanted them arranged. I must
say he does think of rather pretty things when he cares to please. And
he _does_ care to please you, Betty. But you know that without my
telling you, don't you, my Lady Witch?"

It was hard-hearted of me, but all my pleasure in the gleaming white
beauties went out, like a bursting bubble. It gets on my nerves to be
grateful to Potter three or four times a day!

Nevertheless, when he came back (which he did after we had dressed, and
were having tea behind the rain of glittering glass) I had to thank him
prettily. He was pleased, but was evidently thinking about something
else.

"I didn't get to the Casino, after all," said he. "I met Mrs. Pitchley
going out to make a call (she was on her way home, it seems, when we
met her) and she offered to turn back if I'd go with her, so I did."

"Now, see here, Potter Parker," broke in Mrs. Ess Kay, "I don't wish
you to set up as another of Cora Pitchley's champions. It's all very
well for Margaret Taylour to be forever quoting her; and she is fun,
but she goes around being original in the wrong way, that nobody
admires. That is, she does what she wants and not what other people
want her to do. Margaret spends her summers at Blue Bay, and I spend
mine at Newport, and I'm not going to have Mrs. Van der Windt down on
me, or on my brother, either, if I can help it."

"Thanks for good advice," replied Potter airily. "But may be, when you
hear what Mrs. Pitchley had to say to me, you'll change your tune."

Mrs. Ess Kay raised her eyebrows, but her eyes would look curious.
"What coul