"You don't mind a bit when I call you conceited," Pauline went on, challenging her sister. "I believe you're so conceited that you're proud even of being conceited. Why doesn't Guy come and see us, I wonder?" "Why should he come?" Monica asked, rather severely. "Perhaps he's doing some work for a change." "I believe he's hurt," Pauline declared. "Hurt?" repeated her sisters. "Yes, because you were both so frightfully critical of his room. Oh, I _am_ glad that Mother and I aren't critical." "Well, if he's hurt because I said he oughtn't to have an image of Our Lady on his mantelshelf," said Monica, "I really don't think we need bother any more about him. Was I to encourage him in such stupid little Gothic affectations?" "Oh, oh!" cried Pauline. "I think he's frightened of you, Monica dear, and of your long sentences, for I'm sure I am." "He wasn't at all frightened of me," Monica asserted. "Didn't you hear him call me Monica?" "And surely," Margaret put in, "you didn't really like those stupid mock medieval curtains. No design, just a lot of meaningless fleurs-de-lys looking like spots. It's because I think Guy has got a glimmering of taste that I gave him my honest opinion. Otherwise I shouldn't have bothered." "No, I didn't like the curtains," Pauline admitted. "But I thought they were rather touching. And, oh, my dears, I can't tell you how touching I think the whole house is, with that poor woman squeezing her way about that enormous kitchen furniture!" Pauline looked out of the window as she spoke, and there at last was Guy, standing on the lawn with her father, who was explaining something about a root which he held in his hand. On the two of them the rain poured steadily down. Pauline threw up the sash and called out that they were to come in at once. "I am glad he's.... Why, what's the matter, Margaret?" she asked, as she saw her sister looking at her with an expression of rather emphatic surprise. "Really," commented Margaret. "I shouldn't have thought it was necessary to soothe his ruffled feelings by giving him the idea that you've been watching at the window all the week for his visit." "Oh, Margaret, you are unkind," and, since words would all too soon have melted into tears, Pauline rushed from the nursery away to her own white fastness at the top of the house. She did not pause in her headlong flight to greet her mother in the passage; nor even when she entangled herself in Janet's apron could she say a word. "Good gracious, Miss Pauline!" gasped Janet. "And only just now the cat went and run between my legs in the hall."