"I'm sure of that," said Miss Vivian, redoubling her charm of manner, and eyeing the impassive Miss Jones narrowly. "I hope you'll be happy here and like the work. You must always let me know if there's anything you don't like. I think you're billeted just across the road, at our Questerham Hostel?" "Yes." "I'll send some one to show you the way." "Thank you; I know where it is. I left my luggage there before coming here." "The new workers generally come to report to me before doing anything else," said Char, indefinably vexed at having failed to obtain the expected smile of gratitude. "However, if you know the way I must let you go now, so as to be in time for supper. Good-night, Miss Jones." "Good-night," responded Miss Jones placidly, and closed the door noiselessly behind her. Her movements were very quiet in spite of her solid build, and she moved lightly enough, but the Hostel perceived a certain irony, nevertheless, in the fact that Miss Jones's parents had bestowed upon her the baptismal name of Grace. The appeal thus made to a rather elementary sense of humour resulted in Miss Jones holding the solitary privilege of being the only person in the Hostel who was almost invariably called by her Christian name. She enjoyed from the first a strange sort of popularity, nominally due to the fact that "you never knew what she was going to say next"; in reality owing to a curious quality of absolute sincerity which was best translated by her surroundings as "originality." Another manifestation of it, less easily defined, was the complete good faith which she placed in all those with whom she came into contact. Only a decided tincture of Welsh shrewdness preserved her from the absolute credulity of the simpleton. Almost the first question put to Miss Jones was that favourite test one of the enthusiastic Tony, "And what do you think of Miss Vivian?" "I think," said Miss Jones thoughtfully, "that she is a reincarnation of Queen Elizabeth." There was a rather stunned silence in the Hostel sitting-room. Reincarnation was not a word which had ever sounded there before, and it carried with it a subtle suggestion of impropriety to several listeners. Nor was any one at the moment sufficiently _au courant_ with the Virgin Queen's leading characteristics to feel certain whether the comparison instituted was meant to be complimentary or insulting in the extreme. Miss Delmege for once voiced the popular feeling by ejaculating coldly: "That's rather a strange thing to say, surely!" "Why? Hasn't it ever struck anybody before? I should have thought it so obvious. Why, even to look at, you know--that sandy colouring, and the way she holds her head: just as though there ought to be a ruff behind it."