"She's nineteen. She'll be twenty on the twenty-first of October next. She's got a train to her last new dress. And then there's teaching me... She orders me about as if she were a hundred, but lately she's grown moony. If I keep quite still and ask no questions she begins staring, and stares and stares and smiles to herself. So silly! But it passes the time. When the clock strikes she gives such a jump! I'm not getting on a bit; but I'm glad, because then I shall go to school. She takes no interest in me. I did the same exercises four times over and she never knew, and when I told mother she said, `Poor darling!' I thought she meant me, but she meant Rowena. Well, if you grow up, you grow up, but you needn't be silly!" Three afternoons after Dreda's return home a sharp rat-tat sounded at the door, and Maud, flattening her nose against the window, made one of her characteristic announcements. "Mr Seton's horse. He's got on his new breeches!" Dreda gave a glad exclamation. "Mr Seton! Already! The dear thing! How did he know I was home?" There was a short, tense pause, while Mrs Saxon and Rowena kept their eyes glued to the ground. A sensitive hearer would have felt that pause significant, but Dreda was too self-engrossed to be sensitive; she never doubted that Guy Seton's object in calling was to welcome herself on her return from school, and her first words informed him of the fact. "Oh, Mr Seton, it _is_ nice of you to come so soon! Have you got the horse yet? It's lovely of you to remember your promise." "My--my--_what_ horse? What promise?" "The horse for me--my mount! You said you would take me out riding--"