"No doubt," answered her aunt absently. She was debating whether the circumference of May's waist might not be reduced an inch or so by judicious lacing. "Perhaps I had better get my letter written first, Aunt Pauline. I wouldn't miss writing to granny for the world, and any time will do for the clothes." To which her aunt replied with solemnity, and with an appearance of energy which May had never witnessed in her before, "Your wardrobe, May, demands very serious consideration. April is just upon us. You are to be presented at the second Drawing-room. Dress is an important social duty, and we must not lose time in trifling." CHAPTER XII. It was a great comfort to Mrs. Dormer-Smith to find her niece so pretty ("not a beauty," as she said to herself, "but extremely pleasing, and with capital points"), and so entirely free from vulgarisms of speech or manner. In fact, May's outward demeanour needed but very few polishing touches to make it all her aunt could desire. But a more intimate acquaintance revealed traits of character which troubled Mrs. Dormer-Smith a good deal. "I suppose," she observed to her husband, with a sigh, "one had no right to expect that poor Augustus's unfortunate marriage should have left no trace in his children. But it is dreadfully disheartening to come every now and then upon some absolutely middle-class prejudice or scruple in May. Now, Augustus, whatever his faults may be, always had such a thoroughbred way of looking at things." "Certainly, no one can accuse your brother of having scruples," said Frederick. "Besides, it is terribly bad form in a girl of her age to set up for a moralist." "It doesn't seem much like May to set up for anything: she is always so childish and unpretending." "Oh yes; and that _ingénue_ air is delicious: it goes so perfectly with her _physique_. But there are so many things which one cannot teach in words, but which girls brought up in a certain _monde_ learn by instinct." "What sort of things do you mean?" asked her husband after a little pause.