But if I took it so, I was wanting in the regal courtesy to match. What with one delay owing to work which would admit of none, and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was fifteen minutes after the hour named when I reached Bolton Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen's Counsel, that it was plain upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me into the dining-room, where Guest greeted me kindly, and met my excuses by apologies on his part--for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, "My daughter," and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say, "Clear, if you please," and then I was free to turn and apologise to her--feeling a little shy, and being, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out. I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness--to her younger sister--in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for her dress and, of course, some differences. Miss Guest could not be more than nineteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, and with the same child-like innocent look in her face. She had the big, grey eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but hers were more tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming. Her hair too was brown and wavy; only, instead of hanging loose or in a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that looked Greek, and in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose was quite unlike Bab's. Her dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and these, of course, no more recalled my little fishing mate than the sedate self-possession and dignity of the girl, as she talked to her other neighbour, suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady's children in her wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not Bab in fact: and yet it might have been: an etherealised, queenly womanly Bab, who presently turned to me-- "Have you quite settled down after your holiday?" she asked, staying the apologies I was for pouring into her ear. "I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well." "My sisters?" she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning. "Yes," I said, rather puzzled. "You know they were with your father when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab." She dropped her fork on the plate with a great clatter. "Perhaps I should say Miss Clare and Miss Bab."