“You’re very tarsome and cross,” said Georgie. “I should like to take a match and set light to you.” Georgie hated rude conversations like this, but when Robert was in such a mood, it was best to be playful. He did not mean, in any case, to cease leaning over the garden paling till Daisy came back from her trunk-call. “Beyond the mittens,” began Robert, “and, of course, those three sketches of yours, which I daresay are masterpieces----” Daisy bowled out of the dining-room and came with such speed down the steps that she nearly fell into the circular bed where the broccoli had been. (The mignonette there was poorish.) “At half-past one or two,” said she, bursting with the news and at the same time unable to suppress her gift for withering sarcasm. “Lunch to-morrow. Just a picnic, you know, as soon as she happens to arrive. So kind of her. More notice than she took of me last time.” “Lucia?” asked Georgie. “Yes. Let me see, I was putting, wasn’t I?” “If you call it putting,” said Robert. He was not often two up and he made the most of it. “So I suppose you said you were engaged,” said Georgie. Daisy did not trouble to reply at all. She merely went on putting. That was the way to deal with inquisitive questions. This news, therefore, was very soon all over Riseholme, and next morning it was supplemented by the amazing announcement in the _Times_, _Morning Post_, _Daily Telegraph_, and _Daily Mail_ that Mrs. Philip Lucas had left London for two or three days’ complete rest. It sounded incredible to Riseholme, but of course it might be true and, as Daisy had said, that the duchesses had been too much for her. (This was nearer the mark than the sarcastic Daisy had known, for it was absolutely and literally true that one duchess had been too much for her....) In any case, Lucia was coming back to them again, and though Riseholme was still a little dignified and reticent, Georgie’s acceptance of his dinner-invitation, and Daisy’s of her lunch invitation, were symptomatic of Riseholme’s feelings. Lucia had foully deserted them, she had been down here only once since that fatal accession to fortune, and on that occasion had evidently intended to see nothing of her old friends while that Yahoo party (“Yahoo” was the only word for Mrs. Alingsby) was with her; she had laughed at their Museum, she had courted the vulgar publicity of the press to record her movements in London, but Riseholme was really perfectly willing to forget and forgive if she behaved properly now. For, though no one would have confessed it, they missed her more and more. In spite of all her bullying monarchical ways, she had initiative, and though the excitement of the Museum and the Sagas from Abfou had kept them going for a while, it was really in relation to Lucia that these enterprises had been interesting. Since then, too, Abfou had been full of vain repetitions, and no one could go on being excited by his denunciation of Lucia as a snob, indefinitely. Lucia had