"Now, my dear Nesta, this is just wonderful. I am glad to see you again. Do you remember the shrimps and the wading, and how we bathed on a certain morning that shall be nameless?" Nesta coloured and glanced at Penelope. Flossie, without taking any notice of Nesta, went straight up to Penelope. "Well," she said, "and how are you? What is all this fuss about? Why should you, who hoped to be a grand lady, go off to a dull German school? I am sure I should hate it." "I don't," said Penelope. "I like it very much." "Nesta," said Mrs Griffiths, "just come along and have a walk with me all alone." Nesta was forced to comply. "Is it true," said Mrs Griffiths, in an awe-struck tone, "that you are hand in glove with those aristocratic St Justs?" "I am not," said Nesta, who with all her faults was very downright. "Only Angela, one of the family, has been very kind to me, more than kind. She wouldn't have noticed me but for Marcia, dear Marcia. I owe it all to her." "To your sister Marcia, that priggish girl, the old maid of the family as you used to call her? Miss Mule Selfish?" Mrs Griffiths laughed. "I did roar over that name," she said. "I told Griffiths about it, and I thought he wouldn't never stop laughing. He said it was the best and very smartest thing he had ever heard any girl say. It was you who gave it, wasn't it?" "I did; I am horrible sorry, for she isn't Miss Mule Selfish at all. The name fits me best," said Nesta. "Oh, my word," said Mrs Griffiths. "How queer you are. You are much changed; I doubt if you are improved. Flossie, come along here this minute." Flossie ran forward. "What do you think Nesta calls herself now?" "What?" said Flossie, who was not specially inclined to be friendly. "Why, she says she was all wrong about that fine-lady sister of hers, and that she herself is Miss Mule Selfish." "Very likely," said Flossie. "I always did think Nesta a remarkably selfish girl, even when she was supposed to be my great friend. Mother, have you told her?" "No," said Mrs Griffiths, "I have been asking her about herself. She is going to the German school, and she seems quite pleased." "Yes, I am delighted," said Nesta. "Well then, you may as well tell her now," said Flossie. "It's this," said Mrs Griffiths, slightly mincing her words and speaking in a rather affected tone, "that Floss and I are going to London, for father--we always call him father, don't we, Floss?--that is Mr Griffiths, you know, has got a splendid opening there, and he is taking a very fine house in Bayswater, and we are to live there, and Flossie will have masters for music and dancing, and she will come out presently, and perhaps make a great match, for I am given to understand that the men admire her very much, with her black eyes and her rosy cheeks."