She propped it open again and began tidying her hair. It must be nearly tea-time. A phrase caught her eye. “The old château where the first years of Adèle’s life were spent was situated in the midst of a high-walled garden. Along one side of the château ran a terrace looking out over a lovely expanse of flower-beds. Beyond was a little pleasaunce surrounded by a miniature wall and threaded by little pathways lined with rose trees. Almost hidden in the high wall was a little doorway. When the doorway was open you could see through into a deep orchard.” The first tea-bell rang. The figure of Adèle flitting about in an endless summer became again lines of black print. In a moment the girls would come rushing up. Miriam closed the book and turned to the dazzling window. The sun blazed just above the gap in the avenue of poplars. A bright yellow pathway led up through the green of the public cricket ground, pierced the avenue of poplars and disappeared through the further greenery in a curve that was the beginning of its encirclement of the park lake. Coming slowly along the pathway was a little figure dressed bunchily in black. It looked pathetically small and dingy in the bright scene. The afternoon blazed round it. It was something left over. What was the explanation of it? As it came near it seemed to change. It grew real. It was hurrying eagerly along, quite indifferent to the afternoon glory, with little rolling steps that were like the uneven toddling of a child, and carrying a large newspaper whose great sheets, although there was no wind, balled out scarcely controlled by the small hands. Its feathered hat had a wind-blown rakish air. On such a still afternoon. It was thinking and coming along, thinking and thinking and a little angry. What a rum little party, murmured Miriam, despising her words and admiring the wild thought-filled little bundle of dingy clothes. Beastly, to be picking up that low kind of slang--not real slang. Just North London sneering. Goo--what a _rum_ little party, she declared aloud, flattening herself against the window. Hotly flushing, she recognised that she had been staring at Miss Jenny Perne hurrying in to preside at tea. 3 “We’ve been to Jones’s this afternoon, Miss Jenny.” Each plate held a slice of bread and butter cut thickly all the way across a household loaf, and the three-pound jar of home-made plum jam belonging to Nancie Wilkie was going the round of the table. It had begun with Miriam, who sat on Miss Jenny’s right hand, and had Nancie for neighbour. She had helped herself sparingly, unable quite to resist the enhancement of the solid fare, but fearing that there would be no possibility of getting anything from home to make a return in kind. Things were so bad, the dance had cost so much. One of Mary’s cakes, big enough for five people, would cost so much. And there would be the postage.