"That is unkind, my child. The fact is, it is the idea of the _boarding-house_ that all your friends shrink from. If you and your mother had taken a nice house in the country, not a large and expensive house, but a fairly respectable one, with a little ground round, I and other people I know might have got ladies to live with you and to pay you well. Our special friends who wanted change and quiet might have been very glad to go to you for two or three weeks, but you must see for yourselves, both of you, that this sort of thing is impossible. Nevertheless, I came here to-day to say that whenever, Westenra, you step up, you will find your old friend----" "And godmother," I said. "And godmother," she repeated, "willing to give you a helping hand." "When you became my godmother," I said slowly (oh, I know I was very rude, but I could not quite help myself), "you promised for me, did you not, that I should not love the world?" The Duchess gazed at me out of her round, good-humoured brown eyes. "We all know just what that means," she said. "No, we do not," I answered. "I think very few people do know or realise it in the very least. Now stepping back again might mean the world; perhaps mother and I would rather stay where we are." As I spoke I got up impatiently and walked to one of the windows, and just then I saw Mr. Randolph coming up the steps. As a rule he was seldom in to lunch; he was an erratic individual, always sleeping in the house, and generally some time during the day having a little chat with mother, but for the rest he was seldom present at any of our meals except late dinner. Why was he coming to lunch to-day? I heard his step on the stairs, he had a light, springy step, the drawing-room door opened and he came in. "Ah, Jim," said the Duchess, "I scarcely expected to see you here." She got up and held out her hand; he grasped it. I thought his face wore a peculiar expression. I am not quite certain about this, for I could not see him very well from where I was standing, but I did notice that the Duchess immediately became on her guard. She dropped his hand and turned to mother. "I met Mr. Randolph last year in Italy," she said. Mother now entered into conversation with them both, and I stood by the window looking out into the square, and wondering why the Duchess had coloured when she saw him. Why had she called him Jim? If she only met him last year abroad it was scarcely likely that she would be intimate enough to speak to him by his Christian name. A moment later she rose. "You may take me down to my carriage, Jim," she said. "Good-bye, Westenra; you are a naughty girl, full of defiance, and you think your old godmother very unkind, but whenever you step up I shall be waiting to help you. Good-bye, good-bye. Oh hurry, please, Mr. Randolph, some of those creatures may be coming in. Good-bye, dear, good-bye."