"Here is a little present for you, Miss Bush, for Christmas; I want you to buy yourself an evening frock--you must dine with us on Christmas Day and perhaps you had not provided for this possibility. I am very pleased with you, girl--you work splendidly." Katherine coloured to the roots of her ashen-hued, glistening hair. She could not analyse her emotions. She hated presents, and yet she was gratified at the kindliness and appreciation which lay in the manner of the gift. "Your Ladyship is too good," she said very low. "I have simply done my duty--but I will endeavour to buy something suitable with the money which is far more than enough." The old lady looked at her critically with her head a little on one side--she understood what the blush had arisen from and she appreciated the pride in the girl. "The creature must have some breeding in her somewhere in spite of the auctioneer parentage. I must talk to her when we get to Blissington. She may prove a great interest for my old age." But she said aloud: "Well, get what you like with it. I leave it to you, your taste is excellent--and while you are out, pay these two bills for me, and take a little walk--you have been looking rather pale; I fear you have not taken enough outdoor exercise lately." Katherine thanked her and went rapidly to her room, a sense of excitement and anticipation in her heart. This might prove an interesting afternoon. There she reviewed her wardrobe. Her "dressy" blouse from Oxford Street was too ornate for the daytime, and she thought now in rather bad taste, and her morning ones were too dowdy. This was a great occasion and one which she had been waiting for. She was to go home late on this Friday to stay the night at Bindon's Green. Matilda had insisted upon it, because it was her birthday; she would be thirty years old. She had been quite tearful about it on the second occasion on which she had met her sister in the Park. "You need not cast us all off like this, Kitten," she pleaded, "and we shall have Mabel and a few other friends on Friday night, and Fred has given us a lot of lovely new nigger song records for the gramophone, and it will all be so awfully jolly." So Katherine had promised to go, and this fell in admirably with her plans. There would be a real excuse for her to have her hair waved. She had been given the evening off and it was known that she was going home. She would consult Gladys again for the frock for Christmas night and buy what was necessary on her way back to Berkeley Square on the morrow.