to pour water on men with hard black
hats, capable of swearing?

"I had almost forgotten to tell you, an old man came yesterday and
wanted to see over the house. You can imagine what a scare I got--I made
sure he wanted to buy it; but it turned out that he had lived at The
Rigs as a boy, and had come back for old sake's sake. He looked ill and
rather shabby, and I don't believe life had been very good to him. I did
want to try and make up a little, but he was difficult. He was staying
at the Temperance, and it seemed so forlorn that he should have no one
of his own to come home to. He didn't look as if anybody had ever made a
fuss of him. I asked him to stay with us for a week, but he wouldn't. I
think he thought I was rather mad to ask him, and Pamela laughed at me
about it.... She laughs at me a good deal and calls me a
'sentimentalist.' ...

"There is the luncheon bell.

"We are longing for your letter to-morrow to hear how you are settling
down. Mrs. M'Cosh has baked some shortbread for you, which I shall post
this afternoon.

"Love from each of us, and Peter.--Your

"JEAN."

CHAPTER VII

"Is this a world to hide virtues in?"

_Twelfth Night._

"You should never wear a short string of beads when you are wearing big
earrings," Pamela said.

"But why?" asked Jean.

"Well, see for yourself. I am wearing big round earrings--right. I put
on the beads that match--quite wrong. It's a question of line."

"I see," said Jean thoughtfully. "But how do you learn those things?"

"You don't learn them. You either know them, or you don't. A sort of
instinct for dress, I suppose."

Jean was sitting in Pamela's bedroom. Pamela's bedroom it was now,
certainly not Bella Bathgate's.

The swinging looking-glass had been replaced by one which, according to
Pamela, was at least truthful. "The other one," she complained, "made me
look pale green and drowned."

A cloth of fine linen and lace covered the toilet-table which was spread
with brushes and boxes in tortoiseshell and gold, quaint-shaped bottles
for scent, and roses in a tall glass.

A jewel-box stood open and Pamela was pulling out earrings and
necklaces, rings and brooches for Jean's amusement.

"Most of my things are at the bank," Pamela was saying as she held up a
pair of Spanish earrings made of rows of pearls. "They generally are
there, for I don't care a bit about ordinary jewels. These are what I
like--odd things, old things, things pic