?"

"Oh," she returned, with a little shrug of her shoulders, which
frightened away both pigeons, "you didn't like the way I played your
last accompaniment, and so I've stopped for good."

Lynn thought it only a repetition of what she had said when he
criticised her, and passed it over in silence.

"I've already done an hour," he said, "and I'll have time for another
before lunch. I can get in the other two before dark, and then I'm
going for a walk. You'll come with me, won't you?"

"You haven't asked me properly," she objected.

Irving bowed and, in set, gallant phrases, asked Miss Temple for "the
pleasure of her company."

"I'm sorry," she answered, "but I'm obliged to refuse. I'm going to make
some little cakes for tea--the kind you like."

"Bother the cakes!"

"Then," laughed Iris, "if you want me as much as that, I'll go. It's my
Christian duty."

From the very beginning, Aunt Peace had taught Iris the principles of
dainty housewifery. Cleanliness came first--an exquisite cleanliness
which was not merely a lack of dust and dirt, but a positive quality.
When the old lady's keen eyes, reinforced by her strongest glasses, were
unable to discern so much as a finger mark upon anything, Iris knew that
it was clean, and not before.

At first, the little untrained child had bitterly rebelled, but Miss
Field's patience was without limit and at last Iris attained the
required degree of proficiency. She had done her sampler, like the
Colonial maids before her, made her white, sweet loaves, her fragrant
brown ones, put up her countless pots of clear, rich preserves, made
amber and crimson jellies, huge jars of spiced fruits, and brewed ten
different kinds of home-made wine. Then, and not till then, Iris got the
womanly idea which was beneath it all. Perception came slowly, but at
length she found herself in a beautiful comradeship with Aunt Peace. For
sheer love of the daintiness of it, Iris beat the yolks of eggs in a
white bowl and the whites in a blue one. She took pleasure out of
various fine textures and feathery masses, sang as she shaped small pats
of unsalted butter, tying them up in clover blossoms, and laughed at the
little packets of seeds Dame Nature sends with her parcels.

"See," said Iris, one morning, as she cut a juicy muskmelon and took out
the seeds, "this means that if you like it well enough to work and wait,
you can have lots, lots more."

Miss Field smiled, and a soft pink colour came int