“No, indeed; not a bit,” answered Ernie, frankly. “Everybody will know I am your daughter, just the same, and I think it is rather fun.” So it was arranged. The _menu_ took a little longer to plan; and with cooking, dusting, and dressing, the morning flew swiftly by. One might have supposed we were preparing for a royal visit. Eleven o’clock struck,—half-past eleven. Robin and Ernie in their pretty blue sailor-suits flashed down to the kitchen for inspection. “Will she be here soon?” pranced Robin. His eyes were bright as stars, his cheeks as pink as roses. “I think so,” answered mother. “Run up to the nursery now, where you can watch from the window.” At quarter to twelve precisely there sounded the clatter of horses’ feet upon the asphalt. Shall I confess it? Interrupting a hasty toilet I ran to the window, too, and peeped out like any child. A hansom-cab, as Robin had predicted, was drawn up before our door. From it stepped a middle-aged lady. She was tall, somewhat spare, attired in conventional black. From the distance at which I surveyed her she looked a little, just a _little_, like—_Miss Brown_! She mounted the steps and rang the bell. The excitement died from my brain. A chill feeling of disappointment crept over me. Was this the phœnix? this the invisible mentor under whose _dicta_ our household had trembled for so many months? A minute later the sound of subdued greeting floated up from the hall below. “How do you do, Mrs. Hudson?” “How do _you_ do, Mrs. _Bo_-gardus?” I went into the nursery to capture Robin and give his locks one final dab before lunch should be announced. “She’s just like anybody else,” he mourned, lifting a tear-stained face from where it had been buried in his arm against the window sill. “Well, dearest, what did you expect?” I asked, with an absurd inflection of sympathetic woe. “I don’t know,” admitted Bobsie, “but, somehow, I thought—she would be _different_.” Then the bell rang, and we hastened downstairs. In the dining-room the presentations were being made. “Mrs. Graham, allow me the Honour of Presenting my friend Mrs. _Bo_-gardus; Mrs. _Bo_-gardus, Mrs. Graham.—— Miss Brown, allow me to Present my friend Mrs. _Bo_-gardus; Mrs. _Bo_-gardus, Miss Brown.—— Mrs. Hancock, allow me the Honour of Presenting my friend Mrs. _Bo_-gardus; etc.——” Immediately our spirits rose. It was an Occasion, after all. Mrs. Hudson felt it, I felt it, Robin felt it. He put out his little hand quite prettily when his turn came. “So this is the lame boy?” remarked Mrs. _Bo_-gardus, in a stiff falsetto. “No,” protested Robin (I don’t think he had ever been called lame, before), “I just hop a little, because sometimes my side aches.” “It is the same thing, my dear,” explained Mrs. Hudson. “Mrs. _Bo_-gardus knows all about such matters. She sits on two hospitals boards, and is Secretary of the Free Kindergarten Association.” “Indeed!” murmured Miss Brown.