She turned her back on the view. “This part of the palace,” she said, continuing her lecture, “dates from about 1630.” She pointed upwards with her parasol; the coloured slides were now architectural. “A very fine specimen of early baroque. What remains of the old castle, with the tower, constitutes the eastern wing of the present house....” Miss Thriplow, who had heard all this before, listened none the less with the rapt expression of interest that one sees on the faces of children at Royal Institution lectures; partly to atone in Mrs. Aldwinkle’s eyes for the offence of having been at home when Calamy arrived, and partly to impress Calamy himself with her capacity for being frankly, totally and uncritically absorbed in the little affairs of the moment. “Now I’ll show you the inside of the palace,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle, mounting the steps that led from the terrace to the house; her treasures jingled at the end of their chains. Obediently Miss Thriplow and Calamy followed in her wake. “Most of the paintings,” proclaimed Mrs. Aldwinkle, “are by Pasquale da Montecatini. A great painter—dreadfully underrated.” She shook her head. Miss Thriplow was somewhat embarrassed when, at this remark, her companion turned to her and made a hardly perceptible grimace. Whether to smile confidentially and ironically back, whether to ignore the grimace and preserve the Royal Institution expression—that was the question. In the end she decided to ignore the tacit confidence. On the threshold of the great saloon they were met by a young girl dressed in a frock of pale pink linen, with a very young round face (otherwise ingenuous than Miss Thriplow’s) looking out of a rectangular window cut in a short smooth bell of copper-coloured hair. A pair of wide-open pale blue eyes looked out from beneath the straight metallic fringe. Her nose was small and delicately snubby. A short upper lip made her look at once pathetic and merry, like a child. It was Mrs. Aldwinkle’s niece, Irene. She shook hands with Calamy. “I suppose,” he said, “that I ought to tell you that you’ve grown up tremendously since I saw you last. But the truth is that I don’t think you have at all.” “I can’t help my appearance,” she answered. “But inside....” Inside Irene was older than the rocks on which she sat. It was not for nothing that she had passed the five most impressionable years of her life under her Aunt Lilian’s guardianship. Mrs. Aldwinkle impatiently cut short the conversation. “I want you to look at this ceiling,” she said to Calamy. Like hens drinking they stared up at the rape of Europa. Mrs. Aldwinkle lowered her gaze. “And the rustic work with the group of marine deities.” In a pair of large niches, lined with shell-work and sponge-stone, two fishy groups furiously writhed. “So delightfully _seicento_,” said Mrs. Aldwinkle.