Little Polly Flinders loved dearly to crawl off into the corner, as far under the lean-to as the low rocking-chair, which had served all the Greys in turn, would go, and quietly to sit rocking Hortense, watching Miss Charlotte with awe-struck eyes that never got to the end of the charm and the lessons of that gentle face. It became Polly's task to water the flowers in the boxes under the windows in the lowest dip of the lean-to, because she most easily of any of the inmates of the little grey house could crawl up to them as they thirstily awaited her. Perhaps it was because Polly was so faithful to them, perhaps because Charlotte Grey loved them so dearly, but for some reason the flowers in the lean-to room blossomed as no others in Fayre seemed to blossom, and filled the air with the sweetness of mignonette, heliotrope, and roses, brightening the quiet room with their glad colours. Prue came home one afternoon with a face that would have betrayed her perturbed state of mind to her family had there been any one about to have seen it. But her mother had gone to Aunt Azraella's, Wythie and Rob were out, Lydia sat in the kitchen darning long black hose to a wailing accompaniment, and Kiku-san was too sleepy at that hour to be observant of Prue's expression. But the instant she crossed the threshold of the lean-to room, Miss Charlotte dropped her knitting--as usual she was making soft wrappings for little babies--and said: "Why, Prudy, dear girl, what has happened?" "No one ever sees things as quickly as you do, Cousin Peace!" exclaimed Prue, taking off her hat before the landscape mirror, and lightly "fluffing" her golden hair before she took the low stool opposite Cousin Peace. "There hasn't anything really happened, Cousin Charlotte, but there is a chance for something to happen." "There usually is," remarked Cousin Peace, resuming her knitting. "Fourteen chances of sixty minutes each, at the very least, in each day, and I think we may as well count them as twenty-four, because the greatest event of my life was that dreadful fire, and that happened in the night." "Yes, but I mean that I have a chance, right here in my hand, for something nice to happen to me, and I'm afraid mama won't let it happen," said Prue dubiously. Miss Charlotte reached over and touched the letter that Prue held. "What is it all about, Prue?" she asked, leaning back again. "First of all, Cousin Peace, do you think it is so very dreadful to be ambitious?" asked Prue. "I think it is very dreadful to lack ambition, Prudy. I think it all depends on the direction one's ambitions take," returned Miss Charlotte.