"Ay, Tom asked him, I believe," said Gertrude. "Maybe his Lord could not spare him. Do you miss him?" "I would like to have seen him," said Lettice innocently. "Tom would not love to hear you say so much, I can tell you," laughed Gertrude. "He admires you very much, Lettice. Oh, do let us drop the `Mistress'--it is so stiff and sober--I hate it." "Me!" was all that it occurred to Lettice to answer. "You. Don't you like men to admire you?" "I don't know; they never did." Gertrude went off into a soft explosion of silvery laughter. "O Lettice, you are good! You have been brought up with all those sober, starched old gentlewomen, till you don't know what life is--why, my dear, you might as well be a nun!" "Don't I know what life is?" said Lettice. "I've had twenty years of it." "You haven't had twenty days of it--not _life_. You've been ruled like a copy-book ever since you were born. I have pitied you, poor little victim, you cannot guess how much! I begged Mother to try and win you for to-day. She said she did not believe Starch and Knitting-Pins would suffer it, but she would try. Wasn't I astonished when I heard you really were to come!" "What do you mean by Starch and Knitting-Pins?" asked the bewildered Lettice. "Oh, that awful aunt of yours who looks as if she had just come out of the wash, and your sweet-smiling grandmother who is always fiddling with knitting-pins--" Gertrude stopped suddenly. She understood, better than Lettice did herself, the involuntary, unpremeditated gesture which put a greater distance between them on the window-seat, and knew in a moment that she had scandalised her guest. "My dear creature!" she said with one of her soft laughs, "if you worship your starchy aunt, I won't say another word! And as to my Lady Louvaine, I am sure I never meant the least disrespect to her. Of course she is very sweet and good, and all that: but dear me! have you been bred up to think you must not label people with funny names? Everybody does, my dear--no offence meant at all, I assure you." "I beg your pardon!" said Lettice stiffly--more so, indeed, than she knew or meant. "If that be what you call `life,' I am afraid I know little about it." "And wish for no more!" said Gertrude, laughing. "Well, if I offended you, I ought to beg pardon. I did not intend it, I am sure. But, my dear, what a pity you do not crisp your hair, or curl it! That old-fashioned roll back is as ancient as my grandmother. And a partlet, I declare! They really ought to let you be a _little_ more properly dressed. You never see girls with turned-back hair now." Lettice did not know whether to blush for her deficiencies, or to be angry with Gertrude for pointing them out. She felt more inclined to the latter.