"Oh, never mind what you declare! Can you lend us some boot-polish-- that's the question!" cried Peggy sharply. She knew Mellicent's horror of ridicule, and felt indignant with the girl who could stand by, secure in her own beauty and elegance, and have no sympathy for the misfortune of a friend. "If you have a bottle of peerless gloss, or any of those shiny things with a sponge fastened on the cork, I can make them look quite respectable, and no one will have any cause to laugh." "Ha, ha, ha!" trilled Rosalind once more, "Peggy is cwoss! I never knew such a girl for flying into tantwums at a moment's notice! Yes, of course I'll lend you the polish. There is some in this little cupboard--there! I won't touch it, in case it soils my gloves. Shall I call Marie to put it on for you?" "Thank you, there's no need--I can do it! I would rather do it myself!" "Oh--oh, isn't she cwoss! You will bweak the cork if you scwew it about like that, and then you'll never be able to get it out. Why don't you pull it pwoperly?" "I know how to pull out a cork, thank you; I've done it before!" Peggy shot an angry glance at her hostess, and set to work again with doubled energy. Now that Rosalind had laughed at her inability, it would be misery to fail; but the bottle had evidently lain aside for some time, and a stiff black crust had formed round the cork which made it difficult to move. Peggy pulled and tugged, while Rosalind stood watching, laughing her aggravating, patronising little laugh, and dropping a word of instruction from time to time. And then, quite suddenly, a dreadful thing happened. In the flash of an eye--so quickly and unexpectedly, that, looking back upon it, it seemed like a nightmare which could not possibly have taken place in real life--the cork jerked out in Peggy's hand, in response to a savage tug, and with it out flew an inky jet, which rose straight up in the air, separated into a multitude of tiny drops, and descended in a flood--oh, the horror of that moment!--over Rosalind's face, neck, and dress. One moment a fairy princess, a goddess of summer, the next a figure of fun with black spots scattered thickly over cheeks and nose, a big splash on the white shoulder, and inky daubs dotted here and there between the rose-leaves. What a transformation! What a spectacle of horror! Peggy stood transfixed; Mellicent screamed in terror; and Esther ran forward, handkerchief in hand, only to be waved aside with angry vehemence. Rosalind's face was convulsed with anger; she stamped her foot and spoke at the pitch of her voice, as if she had no control over her feelings.