"I'll tell you something funny about that," said Antonia. "Perhaps I oughtn't to, but I'm going to. Uncle Anthony made mother promise not to send you away until he came back, no matter what happened; but mother says she knows a way to get round that if the worst comes to the worst. You see, I don't want to hurt your feelings; but we all felt it was rather hard on us to have a governess at all in summer. Mother thinks it's hard too. She says it's just one of Uncle Anthony's ideas. She says a man can't take an interest in anything unless he thinks he's running it. So she just lets him think he runs the family, and then when he's away she does what she thinks best. This is our gate now. What do you think of the house? We only rent it. There's Durland going in for a swim before dinner. I wonder if he'd wait for us. Durland! Durland!" It was quite extraordinary the volume of sound that could issue from so small a person as Antonia. She sprang out of the car over the closed door and ran round the house toward the ocean, while Pearl entered the front door alone. A slim, gray-haired figure in delft blue came out of a neighboring room and said "Good heavens, you are not Miss Exeter, are you?" Pearl smiled her most winning smile. "Won't I do?" she said. But merriment did not seem quite in order. Mrs. Conway's manners were perfect, but she was not going to begin by being any more friendly than she could help. She answered politely, "Oh, perfectly, I feel sure. Only you do not look quite as my brother's description led me to expect; but then men are not very good at describing women." Her hair, prematurely gray, gave more the effect of powder. Her brows were arched so much that she seemed to be looking up from under a thatch. They were blue eyes; not quite China blue, as Pearl had heard the family eyes described; they were sad, appealing eyes, which kept veiling themselves in an effort to seem dignified and remote. Yes, Pearl thought, there was something pathetic about Mrs. Conway--something that made her feel just a little bit as Alfred's lost paw made her feel; so she beamed gently down upon her new employer while that lady continued: "I don't see how Antonia ever found you--from his account. Fortunately the child is wonderfully quick or you would be waiting at the station still. Where is she, by the way?" Pearl explained that she had dashed down to the beach to ask her brother to wait for them, and would it be all right if she went swimming too? Over Mrs. Conway's shoulder Pearl could catch a glimpse of the piazza, and beyond that the faultless blue rim of the horizon; and as she talked she could hear close by the thud and hiss as a wave went up the beach. She longed to be in the water.