he
roses and the trellis, right on to the fair head and the face of the
young man next door.

"Oh!" I cried, scarlet with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon----"

"It's quite all right, thanks," he said. "Most refreshing!"

Here I realised that I was still giving him a shower-bath all the time.

Then we both laughed heartily together. It was the first good laugh I'd
had for months! And then I trained the hose off him at last and on to
our border, while the young man, watching me from over the palings, said
quickly:

"I've been wanting to talk to you, do you know? I've been wanting to
ask----"

Well, I suppose I shall never know now, what he wanted to ask. For that
was the moment when there broke upon the peaceful evening air the sound
of a voice from the back window of our drawing-room, calling in outraged
accents:

"Beatrice! Bee--atrice!"

Immediately all the laughter went out of me.

"Y--yes, Aunt Anastasia," I called back. In my agitation I dropped the
end of the hose on to the ground, where it began irrigating the turf and
my four-and-elevenpenny shoes at the same time.

"Beatrice, come in here instantly," called my aunt in a voice there was
no gainsaying.

So, leaving the hose where it lay, and without another glance at the
trellis, in I dashed through the French window into our drawing-room.

A queer mixture of a room it is. So like us; so typical of our
circumstances! A threadbare carpet and the cheapest bamboo easy-chairs
live cheek-by-jowl with a priceless Chippendale cabinet from Lovelace
Court, holding a few pieces of china that represent the light of other
days. Upon the faded cheap wallpaper there hangs the pride of our home,
the Gainsborough portrait of one chestnut-haired, slim-throated
ancestress, Lady Anastasia Lovelace, in white muslin and a blue sash,
painted on the terrace steps at Lovelace Court.

This was the background to the figure of my Aunt Anastasia, who stood,
holding herself as stiff as a poker (she is very nearly as slim, even
though she's fifty-three) in her three-year-old grey alpaca gown with
the little eightpence-three-farthings white collar fastened by her pearl
brooch with granny's hair in it.

Her face told me what to expect. A heated flush, and no lips. One of
Auntie's worst tempers!

"Beatrice!" she exclaimed in a low, agitated tone. "I am ashamed of you.
I am ashamed of you." She could not have said it more fervently if I'd
been found forging cheques. "After al