But she hardly took the trouble to answer me except by a nod; her black eyes were fixed upon me as I spoke, as if she would, and almost as if she could, penetrate to my inmost soul. Then, as if satisfied with the result of her scrutiny, she relapsed into her usual hard, cold manner, and, answering my good-night shortly, left me alone. Then I made up my mind definitely on a point that had often occupied me vaguely, and decided that Mrs. Rayner and Sarah were, in different ways, without exception, the two most unpleasant and disagreeable women I had ever met. And after that I went to bed and dreamt, not of a burglar, but of quite a different person. The next day was Sunday, and there were two strangers in church who attracted the attention of all the congregation. They were two fair-complexioned, light-haired girls who sat in the Reades’ pew, and who had evidently spared no expense on rather tasteless and unbecoming toilettes. I caught myself feeling not sorry that they were ill-dressed, and glad that one was plain and that the one who was pretty was dreadfully freckled; and I wondered how it was that I had grown so ill-natured. Mr. Laurence Reade sat between them, and he shared his hymn-book with the pretty one; and I did so wish it had been with the plain one! And when we came out of church, and he and his sisters and the two girls trooped out together, the breaking up of the group left him to pair off again with the pretty one. I remember noticing, as Haidee and I walked home together, that the midges teased me more than they had ever done that summer, that the sun was more scorching, and that it was just as dusty as if we had not had any rain at all. It was a horrid day. Mr. Rayner asked us, at dinner, if we had noticed the two girls with the pretty hair in Mr. Reade’s pew, and said that he had heard that the one with the blue eyes was the future Mrs. Laurence Reade, and that it would be an excellent match for both of them. “I noticed that he paid her a great deal of attention at church, and afterwards they paired off together quite naturally,” said he. And that afternoon the heat and the midges and the dust were worse than ever. Mr. Rayner complained on the day after this that I was looking paler than before, and threatened to have me sent back to my old room if I did not look brighter in two days from that date. Luckily for me, within those two days my spirits improved a little. The next day Haidee and I passed by Geldham Park in our walk, and saw over the fence Mr. Reade, his sisters, and the two strangers playing lawn-tennis. None of them noticed us that time; but, as we were returning, I observed that Mr. Reade jumped up from the grass where he was lounging in the midst of the adoring girls, as I thought contemptuously, and shook out of his hat the leaves and grasses with which his companions had filled it; as for them, they were too much occupied with him to see anything outside the park.