"That," said Pamela, as she laid her treasures back in the box, "is one of the minor tragedies of life. One begins by being bored with being young, and as we begin to realise what an asset youth is, it flies. Rejoice in your youth, little Jean-girl, for it's a stuff will not endure.... Now we'll go downstairs. It's too bad of me keeping you up here." "How you have changed this room," said Jean. "It smells so nice." "It is slightly less forbidding. I am quite attached to both my rooms, though when Mawson and I are both here together I sometimes feel I must poke my arms out of the window or thrust my head up the chimney like Bill the Lizard, in order to get room. It is a great disadvantage to be too large for one's surroundings." The parlour was as much changed as the bedroom. The round table with the red-and-green cover that filled up the middle of the room had been banished and a small card-table stood against the wall ready to be brought out for meals. A Persian carpet covered the linoleum and two comfortable wicker-chairs filled with cushions stood by the fireside. The sideboard had been converted into a stand for books and flowers. The blue vases had gone from the mantelshelf and two tall candlesticks and a strip of embroidery took their place. A writing-table stood in the window, from which the hard muslin curtains had been removed; there were flowers wherever a place could be found for them, and new books and papers lay about. Jean sank into a chair with a book, but Pamela produced some visiting-cards and read aloud: "MRS. DUFF-WHALLEY. MISS DUFF-WHALLEY. THE TOWERS, PRIORSFORD. "Who are they, please? and why do they come to see me?" Jean shut her book, but kept her finger in as if hoping to get back to it soon, and smiled broadly. "Mrs. Duff-Whalley is a wonderful woman," she said. "She knows everything about everybody and simply scents out social opportunities. Your name would draw her like a magnet." "Why is she called Duff-Whalley? and where does she live? I'm frightfully intrigued." "As to the first," said Jean, "there was no thought of pleasing either you or me when she was christened--or rather when the late Mr. Duff-Whalley was christened. And I pointed out the house to you the other day. You asked what the monstrosity was, and I told you it was called The Towers." "I remember. A staring red-and-white house with about thirty bow-windows and twenty turrets. It denies the landscape." "Wait," said Jean, "till you see it close at hand. It's the most naked, newest thing you ever saw. Not a creeper, not an ivy leaf is allowed to crawl on it; weather seems to have no effect on it: it never gets to look any less new. And in summer it is worse, for then round about it blaze the reddest geraniums and the yellowest calceolarias and the bluest lobelias that it's possible to imagine." "Ghastly! What is the owner like?"