Mrs. Everty made the tea. Her dress, white one way, green the other, gleamed like silver in the lamplight. It had a quantity of white lace upon it: light green ribbons were twisted in her hair. "I should think it would be better to have those curtains drawn, Mabel. Your tea's ready: if you will come to it." "But I choose to have the curtains open and I'll take my tea here," answered Mabel. "You may be going out again for hours, and what company should I have but the street? I don't like to be shut up in a strange room: I might see ghosts. Johnny Ludlow, that's a little coffee-table by the wall: if you'll put it here it will hold my cup and saucer." I put it near her with her tea and plate of bread-and-butter. "Won't you sit by me? I am very lonely. Those other two can talk to one another." So I carried my cup and sat down by Mabel. The "other two," as Mabel put it, were talking and laughing. Tod was taking a lesson in tea-making from her, and she called him awkward. "Are you living here?" I asked of Mabel under cover of the noise. "Living here! no," she replied in her old abrupt fashion. "Do you think papa would let me be living over a shop in Oxford? My grandmamma lives near the town, and she invited me down on a visit to her. There was no one to bring me, and she said _she_ would"--indicating Sophie--"and we came yesterday. Well, would you believe it? Grandmamma had meant _next_ Saturday, and she could not take us in, having visitors already. I wanted to go back home; but she said she liked the look of Oxford, and she took these rooms for a week. Two guineas without fires and other extras: I call it dear. How came she to find you out, Johnny?" "We met just now. She tells us she is Mrs. Everty now." "Oh yes, they are married. And a nice bargain Mr. Everty has in her! Her dresses must cost twenty pounds apiece. Some of them _thirty_ pounds! Look at the lace on that one. Mrs. Smith, papa's wife, gives her a good talking-to sometimes, telling her Mr. Everty's income won't stand it. I should think it would not!--though I fancy he has a small share in papa's business now." "Do they live in London?" "Oh yes, they live in London. Close to us, too! In one of the small houses in Torriana Street. _She_ wanted to take a large house in the square like ours, but Mr. Everty was too wise." Talking to this girl, my thoughts back in the past, I wondered whether Sophie's people had heard of the abstraction of Miss Deveen's emeralds. But it was not likely. To look at her now: watching her fascinating ease, listening to her innocent reminiscences of the time we had all spent together at Lady Whitney's, I might have supposed she had taken a dose of the waters of Lethe, and that Sophie Chalk had always been guileless as a child; an angel without wings.