Regina blushed and looked uncomfortable, as girls generally do when parents are guilty of indiscreet remarks. She made a conspicuous effort to hustle her friend away, but was balked by the rest of the family, whose attitude plainly demanded introductions. She catalogued them briefly, and would have dismissed them, but they declined to be so easily disposed of, and accompanied the visitor in a body to the garden. Lesbia, who was not very keen on spending a whole afternoon _tête-à-tête_ with Regina, gave them palpable encouragement. She decidedly liked them. First there was Derrick, known in his private circle as "the stripling", a very tall boy of fourteen, who evidently enjoyed female society and was immensely pleased if he were treated as grown up. His manners were more suave than Regina's, and he had reached the stage when he delighted to open doors, pick up handkerchiefs, or perform any other small services for attractive members of the fair sex, preferably older than himself. He attached himself at once to Lesbia, ignoring indignant glances from his sister that seemed to say "Hands off! This is _my_ special property." Magsie and Una, two little girls with cropped flaxen hair and short-cut skirts, hovered about putting in any remarks that anybody would listen to. They each had an eye to taking Lesbia's disengaged left arm, but Regina, who had appropriated the other, frowned them fiercely away. Piers and Winston, the four-year-old twins, were exhibited proudly, somewhat in the fashion of domestic pets, and, when they had performed what Derrick called "their parlour tricks", were dismissed to play in a separate portion of the garden, and bribed with chocolates not to return. There was a tennis lawn, a very nice one too, full-sized, and level, and thoroughly well rolled and free from daisies or dandelion roots. Lesbia looked at it so longingly that Regina, still anxious for an afternoon of private confidences, had perforce to offer a game, though her face grew a little glum when her guest promptly accepted. "You'd better fetch John Curzon," she nodded to Derrick. Derrick, without a word, and somewhat to Lesbia's amazement, departed over the wall, but he returned shortly accompanied by a boy friend who bore a tennis-racket.