Lady Mulgrave sent off a charming, sympathetic letter to her husband, declaring that she was longing to welcome the dear child (lies are _so_ easy on paper!), and that in a day or two she would move south and prepare to receive her at Westlands. She wrote the news to intimate friends as a dead secret, and would leave it to them to break it to all their acquaintance. “The old stock plot of a child changed at nurse has actually been flung as a bombshell into our quiet and everyday little family.” (This is how she began her epistle.) “Imagine poor dear Owen, most conventional and practical of men, having a strange grown-up daughter, Irish and uneducated, suddenly thrust into his arms! Of course he has recognised her, claimed her, and brings her to England very shortly; but please, dear, keep this to yourself. We don’t want any _talk_.” When her ladyship had despatched her correspondence and her lunch, she summoned Miss Tito to her presence. Tito came in with a dishevelled appearance and a flushed face. She had been disturbed in a game of tennis--a match but half decided. “Well, mum,” she began, “are you better? What is it? Please don’t keep me; I’m having such a ripping game, and they are waiting--Lord Bobby, Mr. Beaufort, Julia Legge, two sets all.” “I must detain you a few minutes to tell you a piece of family news”--and she took up her husband’s letter, two sheets closely written. “What do you say to a sister?”--and she looked over at Tito. “A sister!” repeated the girl, with a laugh, “a sister-in-law you mean; I suppose she will be a necessary evil?” “No, but ‘necessary evil’ is a capital name for the new addition to our family”--and in a few pungent and rapid sentences, Miss Dawson was made acquainted with the facts. First she opened her eyes, and then her mouth, and stood staring dumbfounded, and totally unable to speak. Next she tore off her hat, flung it on a table, and cast herself into a chair. “It’s not a joke, is it, mummy?” “No indeed, but deadly earnest. Could anything be more unexpected, inconvenient and _odious_? Is not it too awful?” “Yes; but I cannot get it into my head. What shall you do?” “Make the best of it, of course.” “Fancy a common, low, Irish creature! Oh, I hope she won’t expect me to kiss her, or to be seen about with her!” “You had better be civil to her, Tito, though I grant you it is hard to have an interloper forced on one. She will make us three women--such an uncomfortable number in the carriage and at the opera; and, of course, she takes precedence of you.” “Well, anyway, she won’t take any pals from me, or any partners. I should think she cannot come out, or be in the least presentable, until she has learnt how to dress and behave herself. I suppose she has never owned a pocket-handkerchief or a tooth-brush. Can she read and write?” “Of course. Your father is delighted. Well, it is only natural. But----”