"What in the world has that to do with it?" she asked curiously. "Pretty? Yes, of course. Awfully, when you're in a good temper. We all are. It's in the family. Do you know what Susan calls us?--the youngest Currant Bun, you know--`The Story-Book Saxons.' Isn't it a jolly name? Because, she says, we look as if things would happen to us like they do to people in a book." "Well, they don't to me, anyway. That's just it! What's the use of being pretty if one is buried alive? Think of it, Dreda! nothing has happened all these six long weeks, except old ladies coming to call, and going to tea with mother at the vicarage. I should think there never was such a dull place. We didn't notice before, because it was holiday time, and the house was full, but it's awful for a permanency. The nearest interesting girl lives four miles off, the others are too boring for words. I asked one of them if there were ever any dances, and she laughed and asked whom we should dance with. There are only three young men within a radius of miles. There might perhaps be a Hunt Ball at C-- next autumn. ... And I thought I should have a London season!" Dreda meditated, hunched up in her chair, her chin resting upon her hand. For the moment the scarcity of dances did not affect herself, but she loyally endeavoured to regard the situation from her sister's point of view. "Are the three young men _nice_?" "Oh, my dear, what does it matter? There aren't enough of them to count. Bob Ainslie is one; he used to come over to umpire for the boys' cricket matches. You remember him--freckles and stick-out ears. He has a moustache now. I expect he's quite nice, but he is _not_ exciting. Another is Frank Ross, at the Manor House--I believe he is generally in town. And that nice old Mrs Seton has a son, too. He's handsome; I've seen him riding along the lanes; but, of course, he doesn't pay afternoon calls. What are you to do in a neighbourhood where there are no nice girls, and two and a half young men?" "Improve your mind!" returned Dreda glibly. "Providence evidently doesn't mean you to move in the social round. Perhaps if you had, you'd have grown proud and worldly. I think myself you _would_, for I saw symptoms of it before we left town. Perhaps you've got to be chastened--" Dreda stopped short with a hasty remembrance that she had promised to sympathise, not exhort, and added hurriedly: "Maud's enough to chasten anyone! It's sickening for you, dear, for you would have had lots of fun, and been the belle wherever you went. Let's pretend the Hunt Ball is to-night, and you are going to make your _debut_, a radiant vision in white satin--no, satin's too stiff!--silver tissue. Yes, yes! Silver tissue--how perfectly lovely!--and a parure of matchless diamonds flashing like a river of light upon your snowy neck."