was her duty to attend to us because we were strangers
and shy, and in three minutes we were friends. Sixteen, Daddie! And a
governess-pupil in Cousin Amelia's school. She's a niece of the little
husband, and Cousin Amelia is preening herself like anything because she
takes her for nothing and makes her work like ten people."

"Did the little girl say so?"

"Of course not," Jan answered indignantly, "but Cousin Amelia did. Oh,
how thankful I am she is _your_ cousin, dear, and once-removed from us!"

"How many generations will it take to remove her altogether?" Fay asked.
"However," she added, "if we can have the pixie out and give her a good
time I shan't mind the relationship so much. We _must_ do something,
Daddie. What shall it be?"

Anthony Ross smoked thoughtfully and said very little. Perhaps he did
not even listen with marked attention, because he was enjoying his
girls. Just to see them healthy and happy; to know that they were
naturally kind and gay; to hear them frank and eager and
loquacious--sometimes gave him a sensation of almost physical pleasure.
He was like an idler basking in the sun, conscious of nothing but just
the warmth and comfort of it.

Whatever those girls wanted they always got. Anthony's diplomacy was
requisitioned and was, as usual, successful; for, in spite of her
disapproval, Mrs. Ross-Morton could never resist her cousin's charm.
This time the result was that one Saturday afternoon in the middle of
June little Meg Morton, bearing a battered leather portmanteau and clad
in the most-recently-converted plush abomination, appeared at the tall
house in St. George's Square to stay over the week-end.

It was the mid-term holiday, and from the first moment to the last the
visit was one almost delirious orgy of pleasure to the little
pupil-governess.

It was also a revelation.

It would be hard to conceive of anything odder than the appearance of
Meg Morton at this time. She just touched five feet in height, and was
very slenderly and delicately made, with absurd, tiny hands and feet.
Yet there was a finish about the thin little body that proclaimed her
fully grown. Her eyes, with their thick, dark lashes, looked overlarge
in the pale little pointed face; strange eyes and sombre, with big,
bright pupil, and curious dark-blue iris flecked with brown. Her
features were regular, and her mouth would have been pretty had the lips
not lacked colour. As it was, all the colour about Meg seemed