A most piteous epistle. Bobby Quinton, by his ingratiating ways and his deference and his wit, had effaced her original conception of the type of young men who danced at night clubs for their living. She liked him. He seemed so young and she, through her long companionship with sorrow, so old in comparison; he seemed so foolish and impossible, and she so wise; to her, remembering the helpless dependence of her father and brothers, he seemed (motherless and sisterless as he was) lost in a hostile world. Besides, he was not a nameless adventurer. His father (long since deceased) had been a Colonial Governor. He had been to one of the great public schools. In short, he had the birth and breeding of a gentleman. She slipped on a dressing-gown and went with the letter to Lydia, full of maternal purpose. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Their rooms had a communicating door. She found Lydia daintily attired in boudoir cap and dressing-jacket, having breakfast in bed. “The poor boy’s dying for a breath of sea air. It would do him an enormous amount of good. Do you think we—of course, it really would be me—but it would be better if it appeared to be a joint affair—do you think we could, without offending him, ask him to come down here for a couple of days as our guest?” Lydia, who had read the letter with a smile round her lips, replied drily: “As far as Bobby is concerned—I really think we could.” “And as far as we are concerned,” flashed Olivia, “why should the silly fact of being a woman prevent us from helping a lame dog over a stile?” “A he-dog,” said Lydia. “What does it matter?” Olivia asked stoutly. Lydia laughed in her half-cynical, tolerant way. “Do as you like, dear. I don’t mind. You’re out for experience, not I. I’d only have you remark that our he-dog friend Bobby is sitting up and begging for the invitation——” “Oh! Ah!” cried Olivia, with a fling of her arm, “you’re horrid!” “Not a bit,” smiled Lydia. “I face facts, as you’ll have to do, if you want to find comfort in this matter-of-fact world. Have your Bobby down by all means. Only keep your eye on him.” “He’s not my Bobby,” said Olivia indignantly. “Our Bobby, then,” said Lydia, with good-natured indulgence. So Olivia, with the little palpitation of the heart attendant on consciousness of adventurous and (in Medlow eyes, preposterous) well-doing, wrote to Bobby Quinton a letter whose gracious delicacy would not have wounded the susceptibilities of a needy Hidalgo or an impoverished Highland chieftain, and received in reply a telegram of eager acceptance.