"I will tell you what I can, but you know it is not _comme il faut_ to criticise the house, in which you stay. I will write all the pleasant things, but for the jokes--the _contretemps_, no! Pixie shall do that if she will, I must keep them to myself. If they are all as nice as the son whom I have seen, they must be charming. I have never met a more pleasant youth." The girls wagged their heads in meaning fashion. "We saw him!" they said meaningly--"we saw him! Pixie said he was coming about four, so we kept a lookout, and were obliged to go to the window to read some small print, just as he happened to walk up the steps. Ethel heard the bell, and stopped practising five minutes before the time, and strolled casually downstairs to meet him. He stood aside to let her pass, and she says he smiles with his eyes, just like Pixie! Oh, of course, we don't expect you to tell tales, but just to ease our curiosity. We do take such an extraordinary interest in that family!" "There is another family in which I take an even greater interest just now, and that's the Vanes!" remarked Kate meaningly. "Miss Phipps wrote to Mr Vane, and I met poor Lottie just now with eyes all magenta with crying over a letter she had just received from him. She saw I was sorry for her, and I think she was thankful to have someone to talk to, for she asked me to read it." She threw up her hands with a gesture of dismay. "Well, I don't know what I should do if my father wrote me a letter like that!" "Ow-w-ow!" Ethel shivered dramatically. "How horrible! What did he say? Was it terribly furious?"