"Inferior to yours," Eleanor said promptly. "That's hardly slang. It explains itself really, and so you will find with most of the things I have said. But, perhaps, if you hear any expressions of that sort from the young Danvers and don't understand them, it will be better not to ask their meaning. You see, you are supposed to have lived in a girl's school for the last three years and to have all the slang vocabulary at your fingers' ends, so that if you go asking what every common or garden slang expression means you will give us both away with a pound of tea." "I understand," said Margaret meekly, "and I will not ask." And she made good her promise by forbearing to inquire what "common" or "garden" meant when used in that connection, and what bearing a pound of tea had on the question. "By the way," said Eleanor, "it has just occurred to me that we ought to keep any photographs we have of our parents safely locked away. I must be especially careful, for Mrs. Murray, as an old friend of your grandfather's, might, if she saw the photographs of my father and mother, recognise the fact that they were not yours." "The only portraits I have of my father and my mother are contained in this locket," said Margaret, as she drew an old leather case from her bag and pressed the spring. Within lay a dull gold locket richly chased on one side, and having the monogram "M" beautifully worked in seed pearls on the other. Inside were two portraits painted on ivory, one of Margaret's father and one of her mother. "My mother had these especially painted for me," Margaret said, "but I have never worn the locket. It is too big." "Yes, it is too big to wear," Eleanor said; "but oh!" as she took the case from Margaret's hand, "what a beautiful string of pearls!" The locket fitted into a bed on the velvet-lined case, and round it was a circular depression in which a row of pearls lay coiled. "Yes, that is the chain to wear with the locket," Margaret said. "It is attached to it." "If it wasn't I should wear the pearls by themselves," Eleanor said, examining them intently. "They are a perfectly lovely row, and must be worth a lot of money. You had better keep this very carefully locked up, Margaret," she said, snapping to the case and handing it back to its owner. "They are hardly the sort of things that a governess would be likely to possess." "My bag has a very good key," Margaret answered, "so I should always keep it locked and wear the key on my watch-chain."