Helen took stock of her as she advanced, a prim little figure dressed with exceeding neatness. Her face was small and well-featured, and she had pretty dark eyes and smooth coils of brown hair, but her lips were thin and their expression unpleasing. She walked, too, with a short, ungraceful step, and there was an air of demure superiority about her which was scarcely calculated to impress favourably those of her own age at least. "I don't like her," said Helen to herself as Agatha approached and held out her hand with a patronizing air, observing: "I suppose you are Helen Desmond?" "I suppose I am," returned Helen a little mischievously, sitting up in her hammock, but still swinging herself slowly to and fro. Agatha's thin lips tightened. She had been annoyed that Helen had not come forward to meet her; now she began to think her new acquaintance not only ill-mannered but impertinent. "I daresay you don't know who I am," she went on loftily. "Oh, yes! I do. You are Agatha Bayden." "How do you know that I am Agatha?" "Because I saw you on Sunday boxing your little brother's ears behind the churchyard wall. One of the choir boys said, 'That's Miss Agatha.' I'm not sure he didn't say Agatha." Agatha turned crimson. "I have a message for you," she said, scorning a direct reply. "You are to come to lunch with us to-day, and to spend the afternoon with us." "Who says so?" asked Helen not very courteously. "My mother has invited you, and my aunt says that you may come," returned Agatha still loftily. The mention of Mrs. Desmond recalled Helen to her better mind. She jumped out of the hammock. "I must make myself tidy first," she said with a smile and a sudden change of tone that perplexed her companion. "I oughtn't to have kept you standing here. Will you come in and sit down while I get ready?" "I have already spent half an hour with my aunt, and I think I had better not disturb her again," said Agatha primly. "Oh, no! of course not," returned Helen. "We will go to my room by the backstairs, then we sha'n't disturb anybody." The two girls went off together. Agatha, whose temper had been a good deal ruffled, and who considered herself vastly Helen's superior, was not disposed to be friendly, although Helen was already ashamed of her blunt speeches, and tried to make amends for them by chatting pleasantly as they went along. Her companion's frank and natural manner was not what Agatha had expected, and she remained stiffly silent. On the backstairs they encountered Martha, who was on her way to find Helen, and who did not improve Agatha's temper by sending her to wait in the library, while Helen was carried off to be tidied under Martha's own eye, after which process she was to speak with Mrs. Desmond before leaving the house.