"Beckett's cross," she said, "because I bent the fender coming up. My legs are too short to reach the foot brake in a hurry. Beckett knows that, but he doesn't make allowances." "Is it safe for you to drive, then?" asked Pearl. "Well, if you ask me, no," said Antonia candidly; "but as long as mother lets me do it, of course I'm going to. I wonder if you're going to like us. I don't see how anyone could like Dolly." "What's the matter with Dolly?" "Oh, about everything," answered Antonia. "I'll tell you the kind of person she is: If you forget something she asks you to do she treats you as if you were a moron to have forgotten it, and if she forgets something you ask her to do she treats you as if you were a moron to have asked her to do it." "There must be something to be said for her," Pearl suggested. Antonia considered the question. She was, as her uncle had said, the justest of created beings. "I suppose there must be, but I don't know what it is. Then there's Durland--he's great--only he doesn't notice me much. I wish I were a boy. I want to wear trousers and be free." "You seem to me pretty fairly free." Antonia laughed. "That's funny," she said. "I mean it's funny that you said that exactly the way Uncle Anthony talks--that gentle tone that makes you feel like nothing at all. Do you like Uncle Anthony? Do you think he's handsome?" "Yes, indeed I do," answered Pearl, with the modest enthusiasm which she thought under the circumstances Augusta would have allowed herself. "So do I," said Antonia. "So does Miss Wellington, whose mother has the house next us. She took it before she knew Uncle Anthony was going to be away all summer--at least that's what mother and I think. Miss Wellington told me she thought him handsome and she said 'And you can tell him I said so,' but I didn't--for rather a spiteful reason; I thought she wanted me to." "It sounds that way to me, too," said Pearl. "I'm glad you like him," Antonia went on. "He likes you too. He telephoned mother about you. He said he had found a pearl--wasn't that funny?" It was funnier than Antonia knew. "So now mother always speaks of you as the priceless pearl. Mother's rather amusing, like that. He said you were not so much on looks--just pleasing, he said. But I think you are perfectly beautiful. Do you think you're beautiful, Miss Exeter?" This was the first crisis. Pearl knew that if she said no Antonia would distrust her honesty, and if she said yes it might be used against her. So she compromised. "I'll answer that question the day I leave," she said.