This was evident. The small girl stood in the seat silhouetted against the window, a quaint, sedately fearless little figure with a somewhat reproving expression on the round face framed in a Dutch bonnet. Under the bonnet and over her shoulders billowed masses of yellow curls that broke into misty clouds of fine spun floss that caught and held the April sunshine. Her short-waisted coat, reaching nearly to her heels, was of a warm tan-colour, and she carried a large, imposing-looking muff of the same material bordered with fur. Her mother lifted her down and led her to Mr. Wycherly, who bowed gravely over the small hand extended to him, but did not kiss her, as she evidently expected him to do; for she looked at him with large, trustful eyes, smiling the while a confident smile that showed even white teeth and deliciously uneven dimples in cheeks as fresh and pink as the almond blossom just then bursting into flower. Mrs. William Wycherly was Lady Alicia’s youngest daughter. Montagu vaguely remembered that there was a great fuss at the time of bonnie Margaret’s marriage, and that he had heard it whispered that she had run away and that her mother was very angry. So he looked with great interest at the gracious and beautiful young woman who had been so kind to them when they were little. Certainly retribution did not appear to have overtaken her. She looked radiantly well and happy, and Montagu decided that her husband looked kind and pleasant. Herrick stood leaning up against her mother’s knee, silently taking stock first of Montagu, then of Edmund, then of Montagu again, turning her gravely scrutinising eyes from one to the other without a trace of embarrassment or shyness. Presently Mr. Wycherly suggested that the boys should show Herrick the garden. "Will you go with them, darling?" asked her mother, and Herrick, evidently satisfied with her investigations, declared her willingness to do so. Once outside the parlour door, the steep, crooked staircase attracted her attention. "I’d like to go up that; can I, boy?" she asked Edmund. "Let’s take her and show her our attic," he suggested. Edmund loved the attics. "Shall I carry you?" asked Montagu; "it’s a long stair." "Certainly not," said the little girl with great dignity; "peoples as old as me always walk upstairs." She fell up a good many times during the ascent, for she kept stepping on her long coat in front, and every time she tripped she said: "Oh, dear, how tahsome!" At length they reached the attic, and the moment she saw the four-post bed with the curtains she made a dart towards it, crying joyfully, "Oh, what a beautiful castle it will make. Now we can play my game." She attempted to scramble up on to the bed, but again the coat got in the way and prevented her. "Please take it off," she commanded, standing quite still, "and my bonnet." Montagu unbuttoned the coat and untied the strings of the bonnet. "That’s better," she said; "now we can begin."