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Rh we have! For she was a total stranger to us, just as much! I’ll never feel easy again—though Chum is getting to be a watch dog!” So spoke Jane, rocking herself comfortably on the floor, with a foot in each hand, wrapped around in her gown, and her glorious hair shining around her.

Florimel stretched herself across the foot of Mary’s bed, holding up her arms to let the breeze blow up her flowing sleeves. “It would be bad enough if you or Mary were grown up and—if you were grown up, and anybody noticed it, and—and liked you, Jane,” she said delicately. “But, well, I do hope madrina won’t be too pretty—for us to keep, I mean.”

“I think Lord Kelmscourt is nice, really very nice,” said Mary. “I think, here in Vineclad, where everybody is either old, married, or uninteresting, and half the time all three, madrina will be safe enough, if she doesn’t care for the lordly chauffeur. I must say he is really nice; Win thinks so, too. And being English, madrina may enjoy being Lady Kelmscourt more than we can think. I’m frightened, that’s the truth, but I won’t worry. If it happens I’m going to like it, however I don’t!” Mary checked herself with a laugh at her own heroism.