“Well, I said to one of the gentlemen, ‘Please is Mrs. Crespigny indoors because I’ve come to pay a call on her?’ So he said, ‘Yes, her ladyship is at home, but who might you be, Miss?’ I told him my name was Violet, and that my Mother didn’t want to come, besides being ill, and then I handed him Mother’s card case that I’d filled with visiting cards of my own, like those you wrote for the guinea-pig. He took one out and gave it to the other gentleman, saying, ‘John, go and ask her ladyship.’ That is what they called Mrs. Crespigny, so I knew she must be really a princess and that that was why she had such beautiful servants. “There was a lot of laughing somewhere, but presently Mr. John came back and said, ‘Walk this way, Miss,’ so I followed him into a big room, where there were lots of people, but, oh Molly, they didn’t have crowns on or satin dresses, or anything, they had partic’ly ugly clothes, and all the ladies wore things just like gentlemen, only not trousers; Mr. John was the only beautiful one there. “I was just looking round because there seemed to be such lots and lots of people, when a lady came up, I think it was Mrs. Crespigny, and she said in rather a cross way, ‘So you’ve come to call on me because your Mother doesn’t care to,’ and so I said ‘Yes,’ and every one laughed, I don’t know why. I stood there and I didn’t know what to do until I remembered Mother telling some one that at calls the ladies talked about the weather and babies from the time she went into the room to the time she came out, so I said ‘Good morning, your ladyship. It is a lovely day. Have you got any babies?’ “Well, I don’t see how I could help it, because I couldn’t talk about her babies without knowing if she’d got any, but everybody looked as if I’d said something naughty, and Mrs. Crespigny went right away very angrily, and just at that minute Mother’s parasol dropped with a great clatter, so I thought Mrs. Crespigny would be really cross, and when I picked it up, the opera glasses dropped too. It was dreadful. One gentleman said, ‘Allow me,’ and he put them over my arm again just as if I’d been grown up, and I began to feel a little better, only then he said, ‘Won’t you give me a kiss?’ I said, ‘No, thank you,’ and they all laughed again. “There’d been a lady standing near, a very funny lady with a whip in her hand, and quite a short skirt, and short hair too, and gaiters like Father’s; and she said all at once, ‘Dash it all! leave the kid alone and give it some grub.’ She truthfully did, and she was quite grown up; but perhaps her mother had never told her she oughtn’t to use bad words like that.