‘You are all goodness, Lina dear, but half a maid is no maid. I would rather do without one altogether,’ she said. The room was not absolutely ugly, even in its disorder. All the things that were scattered about were pretty things. There were a good many ornaments, such as are apt to be accumulated by young ladies with plenty of pocket-money, and very little common sense. Mock Venetian-glass flower-vases of every shape and colour; Japanese cups and saucers, and fans and screens; Swiss brackets; willow-pattern plates; a jumble of everything trumpery and fashionable; flowers everywhere, and the atmosphere sickly sweet with the odour of tuberose. Daphne stirred in her sleep, faintly conscious of a new presence in the room, sighed, turned on her pillow, and presently sat up, flushed and towzled, in her indigo gown, just as she had come in from her boating excursion. ‘Have you had a nice nap, dear?’ ‘Lovely. I was awfully tired. We rowed to Stratford Weir.’ ‘And you are quite able to row now?’ ‘Edgar says I scull as well as he does.’ ‘Then, dearest, I think you ought to dispense with Edgar in future and keep to our own meadows, as papa said he wished you to do.’ ‘Oh!’ said Daphne. ‘Is that a message from my father?’ ‘No, dear. But I am sure it will be better for you to consider his wishes upon this point. He is very particular about being obeyed.’ ‘Oh! very well, Lina. Of course if you wish it I will tell Edgar the course of lessons is concluded. He has been awfully good. It will be rather slow without him. But I was beginning to find the breakfasts a weight on my mind. It was so difficult to maintain variety—and Bink has such low ideas. Do you know that he actually suggested sausages—pork-sausages in June! And I could not make him comprehend the nauseousness of the notion.’ ‘Then it is understood, darling, that you row by yourself in future. I know my father would prefer it.’ ‘You prefer it, Lina; that is enough for me,’ answered Daphne in her coaxing way. ‘But I think I ought to give Edgar some little present for all his goodness to me. A smoking-cap, or a cigar-case, or an antimacassar for his mother. I could work it in crewels, don’t you know.’ ‘You never finish anything, Daphne.’ ‘Because the beginning is always so much nicer. But if I should break down in this, you would finish it, wouldn’t you, Lina?’ ‘With pleasure, my pet.’ Edgar was told that evening that his services as a teacher of rowing would no longer be required. And though the fact was imparted to him with infinite sweetness, he felt as if half the sunshine was taken out of his life. CHAPTER VIII. ‘GOD WOTE THAT WORLDLY JOY IS SONE AGO.’