After he had gone she busied herself with the affairs of the house, arranged the dinner for that night, and was on the point of leaving, when somebody rang the front-door bell. She was putting on her hat before the mirror in her bedroom when the maid came up. “Miss Wenner?” cried Leslie, aghast, and only then did she remember that at Arthur’s request she had written inviting the girl to spend the week-end with them. Here was a complication she had not foreseen. And yet, in the space between her room and the hall, she had made up her mind, that, if there was one thing she welcomed at this moment, it was the society of a woman. Mary Wenner was in the hall and greeted her as effusively as if they had been bosom friends, though in truth Leslie scarcely knew the girl. “My dear, I’m so glad to be back in this lovely old country!” she said. “I couldn’t help thinking, as I was driving past dear old Fossaway Manor, how perfectly peaceful everything is!” Leslie could have screamed! Peaceful! “Perhaps it isn’t quite as peaceful as it looks, Miss Wenner,” she said drily. “Call me Mary,” begged the girl. “I do so dislike formalism and standoffness! It will be so awkward if Arthur calls me by my name and you call me Miss… I mean…?” “Well, I’ll call you Mary with pleasure,” said Leslie. “I think you know my name?” “A beautiful name,” said the ecstatic Miss Wenner. “The only thing against it is, you can’t tell whether it’s a boy’s or a girl’s, can you? Don’t you sometimes find that very embarrassing?” “I’ve never found it so yet,” said the girl, leading the way up to her room. She waited till Mary had taken off her hat before she gave her news. “Arthur is in town, but he’ll be back to-night,” she said. “Have you seen the newspapers?” Miss Wenner shook her head vigorously. “I never read the newspapers,” she said reprovingly. “They’re always full of lies, and after the way they roasted me over my breach----” She coughed. For a moment Leslie had a wild idea that the reference was an indelicate one, and then the truth came to her. “Did you ever have a breach of promise action?” she asked, in astonishment. Mary was very red, and her embarrassment was painful to witness. “I did have a little trouble with a young gentleman I went to business with,” she admitted. “I was a mere girl at the time, young and silly as it were, and I must say that I felt that I had to stand up for my rights. A lot of people think it was unladylike, but I say that a girl who is an orphan without parents must look after herself. I got fifty pounds, and it wasn’t worth the trouble and the nuisance.” There was something about the girl that Leslie liked. Unconsciously she was amusing, but there was a sterling value in her, she thought, and Leslie had an uncanny knowledge of women. “No, I never read the papers, Miss Gwyn. After being told by the _Daily Megaphone_ that I had a curious mentality--I shall never forget those words--I’ve given up the papers.”