Jack had once overheard this said on the staircase by Lord Kenilworth, and his own experiences had convinced him of the truth of it. “Mammy can be cruel nasty,” he added, with great solemnity of aspect and many painful personal recollections. Mrs. Massarene had remained under the tree digesting the water she had drunk, and the memory of the blunder she had made with regard to Mrs. Courcy. She ought to have known that there is nothing more perilous than to judge by appearances, for this is a fact to be learned in kitchens as well as palaces. But she had not known it, and by not knowing it had offended a person who went en _intime_ to Balmoral, and Berlin, and Bernsdorff! Half an hour later, when she slowly and sorrowfully walked back through the gardens of her hotel, to go in to luncheon, two bright cherubic apparitions came toward her over the grass. Walking demurely hand-in-hand, looking the pictures of innocent infancy, Jack and Boo, having had their twelve o’clock dinner, dedicated their united genius to the finding and besieging of the old fat woman. “How’s ’oo do?” said Boo very affably, whilst her brother, leaving her the initiative, pulled his sky-blue Tam o’ Shanter cap off his golden curls with his best possible manner. Their victim was enchanted by their overtures, and forgot that she was hungry, as these radiant little Gainsborough figures blocked her path. They were welcome to her as children, but as living portions of the peerage they were divinities. “What’s your name, my pretty dears?” she said, much flattered and embarrassed. “You’re Lord Kersterholme, aren’t you, sir?” “I’m Kers’ham, ’ess. But I’m Jack,” said the boy with the big black eyes and the yellow locks, cut short over his forehead and falling long on his shoulders. “And your dear little sister, she’s Lady Beatrix Orme?” said Mrs. Massarene, who had read their names and dates of birth a score of times in her ‘Burke.’ “She’s Boo,” said Jack. Boo herself stood with her little nose and chin in the air, and her mouth pursed contemptuously. She was ready to discharge herself of scathing ironies on the personal appearance of the questioner, but she resisted the impulse because to indulge it might endanger the restoration of the gold box. “I am sure you are very fond of your pretty mamma, my dears?” said Mrs. Massarene, wondering why they thus honored her by standing in her path. Boo shut up her rosy mouth and her big eyes till they were three straight lines of cruel scorn, and was silent. Jack hesitated. “We’re very fond of Harry,” he said, by way of compromise, and as in allusion to a substitute. “Who is Harry?” asked Mr. Massarene, surprised. The children were puzzled. Who was Harry? They were used to seeing him perpetually, to playing with him, to teasing him, to getting everything they wanted out of him; but, as to who he was, of that they had never thought.