"Yes--we have a few advantages over you, I allow," said Mrs Balderson. "This house is very warm though it is commonplace. But even that must be a change to you after your wonderful old home, with its quaint nooks and crannies and odd-shaped rooms, inexplicable staircases, and--oh, that reminds me. You must tell Lady Campion all about your ghost when we see her again. Ghosts are one of her manias." A slight frown showed itself on Winifred's face at the words. "You know I don't believe in it," she said. "It is so silly." "Oh, Winifred, don't say that," exclaimed Celia, with sudden anxiety. "It always frightens me a little when you speak so." CHAPTER TWO. BLACK AND PINK. Eric Balderson was awaiting his mother--not impatiently, he was never impatient about anything--in the drawing-room, as she had foreseen when they went in. And so was tea, thanks to Eric. He was one of those people in whose case it is not difficult to take the bad with the good, for the latter so decidedly predominated. If slow, tiresomely slow sometimes, he was so considerate; if in a certain sense heavy, he was so entirely to be relied upon, and in unselfish thoughtfulness for others, above all in small matters--for in important ones I cannot endorse the popular axiom that "the best of men are selfish"--he was almost like a woman. "Now, isn't that nice?" said his mother, appreciatively. "Tea _just_ ready. You are clever, Eric. Isn't he a good boy, Winifred? Of course it's all due to my splendid bringing up, but still he does me credit, doesn't he?" Winifred smiled, but did not speak. She knew he was excellent, but she did not care much for Eric Balderson. Celia liked him better. "I suppose you have learned to be daughter as well as son to your mother," she said quietly, as she stood by the table, while this very "tame-cat" young man, as Winifred contemptuously called him, poured out the tea for his mother and her young friends. "Yes, that's to say she has had to put up with my feeble efforts in that direction, failing better," he said. "Now then, I think I have got hers--my mother's--tea just as she likes it; will you be so good as to tell me of any peculiarities of taste of yours, or your sister's--cream, sugar, both or neither, or which?" "Winifred takes no cream--I take both. Yes, I will hand Mrs Balderson hers, and you can look after Winifred. This is mine? Thank you," and Celia seated herself near the tea-table. "Did you enjoy the concert this afternoon?" young Mr Balderson inquired. "It was a concert you were at, wasn't it?" "Oh yes, very much, very much indeed," said Celia. "It was a very nice concert. But _the_ thing that we cared for most was Miss Norreys' singing." "Miss Norreys--Hertha Norreys, do you mean?" "Yes," said Mrs Balderson, "these girls have both fallen in love with her, Eric." "With _her_ as well as with her singing," said Winifred. Eric looked up with a comical expression.