Before she left, she warned the boys to listen for knocks and rings during her absence—"though ’tisn’t likely," she said, "as anyone’ll come to the side-door; the tradespeople’s all been." Mr. Wycherly was shut in his study and the boys were preparing to go out into the garden where they assuredly would hear no knocks or rings, when there came a faint and timid rap at the side-door. Edmund rushed to open it, and there stood a little girl of about twelve, who asked in a modest whisper: "Please, sir, can I see my aunt a minute?" "Is Mrs. Dew your aunt?" Edmund demanded. "Yes, sir, please, sir. Can I see her?" "She’s just gone out, not five minutes ago." "Oh dear," sighed the little girl, "then I must have missed her." "Was she going to see you, do you think?" Edmund asked. He always took the deepest interest in his fellow creatures. "I expect so, but there’s so many ways one can come. I shall be certain to miss her again going back and then——" "And then," Edmund repeated. "She’ll be cross with me," the little girl replied, and smiled at Edmund. Edmund smiled back and a friendly, confidential spirit was at once established. They looked at each other in silence for a minute. The visitor was dressed in a brown stuff frock of some stiff, unyielding woolen material. She wore a buff coloured cape reaching to the waist and a hat of black straw, trimmed with a brown ribbon, of that inverted-pie-dish shape seemingly peculiar to female orphans educated in charitable institutions, for no other mortal ever wears such an one. The pale face under the shadow of the inverted pie-dish was odd and arresting. The eyes, long-lashed and brilliant, were really brown eyes, almost the colour of old, dark sherry; deep-set under delicately pencilled, very black eyebrows. Her mouth was rather large with well-cut full red lips and strong even white teeth; but her face was painfully thin, the cheeks so hollow and the chin so sharp that her eyes dominated everything, were out of proportion, and imparted to the beholder an uncomfortable sense of tragedy and gloom almost painful—until she smiled. Then the slumbering fire in the great eyes was quenched and they looked peaceful and pleasant as clear brown water under sunshine in a Devonshire trout stream. "Hadn’t you better come in and wait for your aunt?" Edmund suggested. "If you go back now you’re certain to miss her." "May I?" asked the little girl, smiling all over her face. "May I? I hope aunt won’t mind." "Come in," said Edmund, and shut the door. The side-door opened straight into the scullery; then came the kitchen, large, orderly, and comfortable; opening out of that was a housekeeper’s room not yet completely furnished. Edmund led his guest through these apartments and across a narrow passage to the dining-room where Montagu was sitting on the floor fastening on his pads.