Tea was waiting in the large inner hall, and the girl visitor came forward to be introduced and shake hands. She was a slim, fair creature with masses of hair of a pale flaxen hue, swathed round her head, and held in place by large amber pins. Not a hair was out of place--the effect was more like a bandage of pale brown silk than ordinary human locks. Her dress was made in the extreme of the skimpy fashion, and her little feet were encased in the most immaculate of silk shoes and stockings. She looked Pixie over in one quick, appraising glance, and Pixie stared back with widened eyes. "My sister, Patricia O'Shaughnessy," declaimed Esmeralda. Whereupon the strange girl bowed and repeated, "Miss Pat-ricia O'Shaughnessy. Pleased to meet you," in a manner which proclaimed her American birth as unmistakably as a flourish of the Stars and Stripes. Then tea was brought in, and two young men joined the party, followed by the host, Geoffrey Hilliard, who gave the warmest of welcomes to his little sister-in-law. His kiss, the grasp of his hand, spoke of a deeper feeling than one of mere welcome, and Pixie had an instant perception that Geoffrey, like his wife, felt in need of help. The first glance had shown him more worn and tired than a man should be who has youth, health, a beautiful wife, charming children, and more money than he knows how to spend; but whatever hidden troubles might exist, they were not allowed to shadow this hour of meeting. "Sure, and this is a sight for sore eyes!" he cried, with a would-be adaptation of an Irish accent. "You're welcome, Pixie--a hundred times welcome. We're overjoyed to see you, dear." Pixie beamed at him, with an attention somewhat diverted by the two young men who stared at her from a few yards' distance. One was tall and fair, the other dark and thick set, and when Esmeralda swept forward to make the formal introductions it appeared that the first rejoiced in the name of Stanor Vaughan, and the second in the much more ordinary one of Robert Carr. "My sister Patricia," once more announced Mrs Hilliard, and though the young men ascribed Pixie's blush to a becoming modesty, it arose in reality from annoyance at the sound of the high-sounding title which had been so persistently dropped all her life. Surely Esmeralda was not going to insist upon "Patricia!" For a few moments everybody remained standing, the men relating their experiences of the afternoon, while Esmeralda waited for some further additions to the tea-table, and Pixie's quick-seeing eyes roamed here and there gathering impressions to be stored away for later use. She was too excited, too interested, to talk herself, but her ears were as quick as her eyes, and so it happened that she caught a fragment of conversation between Miss Ward and the tall Mr Vaughan, which was certainly not intended for her ears.