"I expect Monica will be like ice, and Margaret will seem so much easier to talk to, and if I dared to suggest that Monica should unbend a little she would freeze me as well. Oh, it's all very difficult," sighed Pauline to herself, "and perhaps I'd better not try to influence things. Only, if he does seem to like Margaret much better than Monica, I shall have to bring poor Richard into the conversation, which always makes Margaret cross for days." As she came to this resolution Pauline looked half apprehensively at her sister reading in the tumble-down arm-chair by the fire. How angry Margaret would be if she guessed what was being plotted, and Pauline actually jumped when she suddenly declared that _Mansfield Park_ was almost the best book Jane Austen ever wrote. "Is it, darling Margaret?" said Pauline, with a disarming willingness to be told again that it certainly was. "Or perhaps _Emma_," Margaret murmured, and Pauline hid herself behind the curtains. How droll Father had been about the "new young creature" at Plashers Mead! It had been so difficult to persuade him to interrupt one precious afternoon of planting bulbs to do his duty either as a neighbor or as Rector of the parish. And when he came back all he would say of the visit was: "Very pleasant, my dears. Oh yes, he showed me everything, and he really has a most remarkable collection of dish-covers--quite remarkable. But I ought not to have deserted those irises that Garstin sent me from the Taurus. Now perhaps we shall manage that obstinate little plum-colored brute which likes the outskirts of a pine forest, so they tell me." Just as Pauline was laughing to herself at the memory of her father's visit, the Rector himself appeared on the lawn. He was in his shirt-sleeves; his knees were muddy with kneeling; and Birdwood, the gardener, all blown about by the wind, was close behind him, carrying an armful of roots. Pauline threw up the window with a crash and called out: "Father, Father, what a darling you look, and your hair will be swept right away, if you aren't careful." The Rector waved his trowel remotely, and Pauline blew him kisses until she was made aware of protests in the room behind her. "Really," exclaimed Monica. "You are so noisy. You're almost vulgar." "Oh no, Monica," cried Pauline, dancing round the room. "Not vulgar. Not a horrid little vulgar person!" "And what a noise you do make," Margaret joined in. "Please, Pauline, shut the window." At this moment Mrs. Grey opened the door and loosed a whirlwind of papers upon the nursery. "Who's vulgar? Who's vulgar?" asked Mrs. Grey, laughing absurdly. "Why, what a tremendous draught!" "Mother, shut the door--the door," expostulated Margaret and Monica, simultaneously. "And do tell Pauline to control herself sometimes." "Pauline, control yourself," said Mrs. Grey.