"The poor child just wanted a good mothering," said Mrs. Stanton to Ulyth. "It is marvellous how fast she is improving. You'll make something of your little wild bird after all. She's worth the trouble." "I'd no idea she could grow into this," replied Ulyth. "Oh, Motherkins, you should have seen her at first! She was a very rough diamond." "Aren't you glad to have a hand in the polishing? It will be such a triumph." Two members of the household, at any rate, saw no fault in the visitor. Dorothy and Peter haunted her like small persistent ghosts, begging for stories about New Zealand. The accounts of her life in the bush were like a romance to them, and so fired their enthusiasm that in the intervals of playing soldiers they tried to emulate her adventures, and were found with a clothes-line in the garden making a wild attempt to lasso the much-enduring Toby. "Rona's very good-natured with them," said Ulyth. "She doesn't mind how they pull her about, and Peter's most exhausting sometimes. I shouldn't like to carry him round the house on my back. Dorothy's perfectly insatiable for stories; it's always 'Tell us another!' How funny Oswald is at present. He's grown so outrageously polite all of a sudden. I suppose it's because he's in the Sixth now. He was very different last holidays. He's getting quite a 'lady's man'." "The young folks are growing up very fast," commented Mr. Stanton in private. "It seems only yesterday that Oswald and Ulyth were babies. In another year or two we shall begin to think of twenty-first-birthday dances." "Oh, don't talk of anything so dreadful!" said Mrs. Stanton in consternation. "They're my babies still. The party on Thursday is to be quite a children's affair." Though "Motherkins" might regard the coming festivity as entirely of a juvenile character, the young people took it seriously. They practised dancing on the polished linoleum of the nursery every evening. Rona had had her first lessons at The Woodlands, and was making heroic efforts to remember what she had learnt. "You'll get on all right," Ulyth encouraged her. "That last was ever so much better; you're dropping into it quite nicely. You dance lightly, at any rate. Now try again with Oswald while I play. Ossie, I'm proud of you! Last Christmas you were a perfect duffer at it. Don't you remember how you sat out at the Warings'? You've improved immensely. Now go on!" and Ulyth began to play, with her eyes alternately on the piano and on the partners. "I suppose a fellow has to get used to 'the light fantastic' sometime," remarked Oswald, as, after a successful five minutes' practice, he and Rona sat down to rest. "Perhaps you'll have to dance with princesses at foreign Courts when you're a successful ambassador," laughed Ulyth. "Is that what Oswald's going to be?" asked Rona.