“It’s your being almost Early Victorian, mamma, which makes it easy for you to initiate things. You will initiate little Miss Lawless. It was rather neat of her to prefer to drop the ‘Gareth.’ There has been less talk in late years of the different classes ‘keeping their places’—‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes really strikes one as vulgar.” “We may ‘keep our places’,” the Duchess said. “We may hold on to them as firmly as we please. It is the places themselves which are moving, my dear. It is not unlike the beginning of a landslide.” Robin went to Dowie’s room the next evening and stood a moment in silence watching her sewing before she spoke. She looked anxious and even pale. “Her grace is going to give a party to some young people, Dowie,” she said. “She wishes me to be present. I—I don’t know what to do.” “What you must do, my dear, is to put on your best evening frock and go downstairs and enjoy yourself as the other young people will. Her grace wants you to see someone your own age,” was Dowie’s answer. “But I am not like the others. I am only a girl earning her living as a companion. How do I know—” “Her grace knows,” Dowie said. “And what she asks you to do it is your duty to do—and do it prettily.” Robin lost even a shade more colour. “Do you realize that I have never been to a party in my life—not even to a children’s party, Dowie? I shall not know how to behave myself.” “You know how to talk nicely to people, and you know how to sit down and rise from your chair and move about a room like a quiet young lady. You dance like a fairy. You won’t be asked to do anything more.” “The Duchess,” reflected Robin aloud slowly, “would not let me come downstairs if she did not know that people would—be kind.” “Lady Kathryn and Lord Halwyn are coming. They are her own grandchildren,” Dowie said. “How did you know that?” Robin inquired. “Because her grace was kind enough to say to me that she was thinking of something like this. It was your being a girl among those so much older that brought it to her mind——and her being what she is.” Robin’s colour began to come back. “It’s not what usually happens to girls in situations,” she said. “Her grace herself isn’t what usually happens,” said Dowie. “There is no one like her for high wisdom and kindness.”