Can a saintly virgin on a golden panel look sulky? I'm not sure, but this virgin gave the effect of having been reluctantly torn from such a background, and she looked distinctly sulky, even angelically cross. She had not wanted to come into my garden, that was plain; and she lagged behind the others to gaze at a rose-bush, by way of a protest against the whole expedition. What she saw to disapprove of in me I was at a loss to guess, but that she did disapprove was evident. The dazzling brown eyes, with the afternoon sun glinting between their thick dark fringes, hated me for something;--was it my existence, or my advertisement? Then they wandered to Terry, and pitied, rather than spurned. "You poor, handsome, big fellow," they seemed so say, "so you are that miserable little man's chauffeur! You must be very unfortunate, or you would have found a better career. I'm so sorry for you." "Do sit down, please," I said, lest after all it should occur to Terry to finish that broken sentence of his. "These chairs will be more comfortable if I straighten their backs up a little. And this seat round the tree isn't bad. I--I'll tell my servant to send out tea--we were going to have it soon--and we can talk things over. It will be pleasanter." "What a _lovely_ idea!" exclaimed the auburn lady. "Why, of course we will. Beechy, you take one of those steamer-chairs. I like a high seat myself. Come, Maida; the gentlemen have asked us to stay to tea, and we're going to." Beechy--the little brown girl--subsided with a babyish meekness that contradicted a wicked laughing imp in her eyes, into one of the _chaises longues_ which I had brought up from its knees to a sort of "stand and deliver" attitude. But the tall white girl (the name of "Maida" suited her singularly well) did not stir an inch. "I think I'll go on if you don't mind, Aunt Ka--I mean, Kittie," she said in a soft voice that was as American in its way as the auburn lady's, but a hundred and fifty times sweeter. I rather fancied that it must have been grown somewhere in the South, where the sun was warm, and the flowers as luxuriant as our Riviera blossoms. "You will do nothing of the kind," retorted her relative peremptorily. "You'll just stay here with Beechy and me, till we've done our business." "But I haven't anything to do with--" "You're going with us on the trip, anyhow, if we go. Now, come along and don't make a fuss." For a moment "Maida" hesitated, then she did come along, and as obediently as the brown child, though not so willingly, sat down in the _chaise longue_, carefully arranged for her reception by Terry.