Jan took the other arm. "We can't possibly tell you all about it under an hour, so we'd better go and sit in the balcony." And they gently propelled him towards the staircase. "Not if you're going to discuss Cousin Amelia," Anthony protested. "You have carrying voices, both of you." "Cousin Amelia is only incidental," Jan said, when they were all three seated in the balcony. "The main theme is concerned with a queer little pixie creature called Meg Morton. She's a pupil-governess, and she's sixteen and a half--just the same age as Fay." "She doesn't reach up to Jan's elbow," Fay added, "and she chaperons the girls for music and singing, and sits in the drawing-class because the master can't be quite seventy yet." "She's the wee-est thing you ever saw, and they dress her in Cousin Amelia's discarded Sunday frocks." "That's impossible," Anthony interrupted. "Amelia is so massive and square; if the girl's so small she'd look like 'the Marchioness.'" "She does, she does!" Jan cried delightedly. "Of course the garments are 'made down,' but in the most elderly way possible. Daddie, can you picture a Botticelli angel of sixteen, with masses of Titian-red hair, clad in a queer plush garment once worn by Cousin Amelia, that retains all its ancient frumpiness of line. And it's not only her appearance that's so quaint, _she_ is quaint inside." "We were attracted by her hair," Fay went on "(You'll go down like a ninepin before that hair), and we got her in a corner and hemmed her in and declared it was her duty to attend to us because we were strangers and shy, and in three minutes we were friends. Sixteen, Daddie! And a governess-pupil in Cousin Amelia's school. She's a niece of the little husband, and Cousin Amelia is preening herself like anything because she takes her for nothing and makes her work like ten people." "Did the little girl say so?" "Of course not," Jan answered indignantly, "but Cousin Amelia did. Oh, how thankful I am she is _your_ cousin, dear, and once-removed from us!" "How many generations will it take to remove her altogether?" Fay asked. "However," she added, "if we can have the pixie out and give her a good time I shan't mind the relationship so much. We _must_ do something, Daddie. What shall it be?" Anthony Ross smoked thoughtfully and said very little. Perhaps he did not even listen with marked attention, because he was enjoying his girls. Just to see them healthy and happy; to know that they were naturally kind and gay; to hear them frank and eager and loquacious--sometimes gave him a sensation of almost physical pleasure. He was like an idler basking in the sun, conscious of nothing but just the warmth and comfort of it.