“The dear pretty baby,” she said entreatingly. “Oh, pray, ma’am, oh, pray, my lady, do let her have it, such a trifle as it is!” “No, indeed I cannot,” said Lady Kenilworth firmly, but still with her most winning smile, and she added with that graceful abruptness natural to her, “Do tell me, I am not quite sure, but wasn’t it you who snubbed Phyllis Courcy so delightfully at the hotel bureau yesterday morning?” Mrs. Massarene’s pallid face became purple. “Oh, my lady,” she said faintly, “I shall never get over it, such a mistake as I made! When Mr. Massarene comes to hear of it he’ll be ready to kill me----” “It was quite delightful,” said Lady Kenilworth with decision. “Nobody ever dares pull her up for her cheese-paring ways. We were all enchanted. She is a detestable cat, and if she hadn’t that mezzo-soprano voice she wouldn’t be petted and cossetted at Balmoral and Berlin and Bernsdorff as she is. She is my aunt by marriage, but I hate her.” “Dear me, my lady,” murmured Mrs. Massarene, doubtful if her ears could hear aright. “I was ready to sink into my shoes,” she added, “when I saw her drive away with the Emperor.” Lady Kenilworth laughed, a genuine laugh which meant a great number of things, unexplained to her auditor. Then she nodded; a little pleasant familiar nod of farewell. “We shall meet again. We are at the same hotel. Thanks so much for your kindness to my naughty pet.” And with the enchanting smile she used when she wanted to turn people’s heads she nodded again, and went on her way, dragging the reluctant Boo away from the tree and the golden box. When she consigned her little daughter to the nurse, Boo’s big black eyes looked up at her in eloquent reproach. The big black eyes said what the baby lips did not dare to say: “I did what you told me; I hit the lady very cleverly as if it was accident, and then you wouldn’t let me have the pretty box, and you called me naughty!” Later, in the nursery, Boo poured out her sorrows to her brother Jack, who exactly resembled herself with his yellow hair, his big dark eyes, and his rosebud of a mouth. “She telled me to hit the old ’ooman, and then she said I was naughty ’cos I did it, and she tooked away my dold box!” “Never mind, Boo. Mammy always lets one in for it. What’d you tell her of the box for? Don’t never tell mammy nothin’,” said Jack in the superior wisdom of the masculine sex and ten months greater age. Boo sobbed afresh. “I didn’t tell her. She seed it through my frock.” Jack kissed her. “Let’s find old woman, Boo, if we can get out all by ’selves, and we’ll ask her for the box.” Boo’s face cleared. “And we’ll tell her mammy telled me to hit her!” Jack’s cherub face grew grave. “N-n-no. We won’t do that, Boo. Mammy’s a bad ’un to split on.”