One afternoon Feather swept him, with one or two others, into the sitting-room with the round window in which flowers grew. Robin was sitting at a low table making pothooks with a lead pencil on a piece of paper Dowson had given her. Dowson had, in fact, set her at the task, having heard from Jennings that his lordship and the other afternoon tea drinkers were to be brought into the “Palace” as Feather ironically chose to call it. Jennings rather liked Dowson, and often told her little things she wanted to know. It was because Lord Coombe would probably come in with the rest that Dowson had set the low, white table in the round windows and suggested the pothooks. In course of time there was a fluttering and a chatter in the corridor. Feather was bringing some new guests, who had not seen the place before. “This is where my daughter lives. She is much grander than I am,” she said. “Stand up, Miss Robin, and make your curtsey,” whispered Dowson. Robin did as she was told, and Mrs. Gareth-Lawless’ pretty brows ran up. “Look at her legs,” she said. “She’s growing like Jack and the Bean Stalk—though, I suppose, it was only the Bean Stalk that grew. She’ll stick through the top of the house soon. Look at her legs, I ask you.” She always spoke as if the child were an inanimate object and she had, by this time and by this means, managed to sweep from Robin’s mind all the old, babyish worship of her loveliness and had planted in its place another feeling. At this moment the other feeling surged and burned. “They are beautiful legs,” remarked a laughing young man jocularly, “but perhaps she does not particularly want us to look at them. Wait until she begins skirt dancing.” And everybody laughed at once and the child stood rigid—the object of their light ridicule—not herself knowing that her whole little being was cursing them aloud. Coombe stepped to the little table and bestowed a casual glance on the pencil marks. “What is she doing?” he asked as casually of Dowson. “She is learning to make pothooks, my lord,” Dowson answered. “She’s a child that wants to be learning things. I’ve taught her her letters and to spell little words. She’s quick—and old enough, your lordship.” “Learning to read and write!” exclaimed Feather. “Presumption, I call it. I don’t know how to read and write—least I don’t know how to spell. Do you know how to spell, Collie?” to the young man, whose name was Colin. “Do you, Genevieve? Do you, Artie?” “You can’t betray me into vulgar boasting,” said Collie. “Who does in these days? Nobody but clerks at Peter Robinson’s.” “Lord Coombe does—but that’s his tiresome superior way,” said Feather. “He’s nearly forty years older than most of you. That is the reason,” Coombe commented. “Don’t deplore your youth and innocence.”