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Rh higgledy-piggledy party like this," said Lucia. "Do wear that instead."

Lucia sat down near the fire and poked it into a blaze. She felt she had been very diplomatic over this, for she had both gratified Aunt Cathie by her reception of the splendour of the puce-coloured silk, and she had averted the horror of seeing her appear in that terrific garment. No detail had escaped her; she had seen its sleevelessness, its wedges of lace, its Watteau sacque.

"And now I'm going to sit and talk to you for half an hour," she said—"or, rather, you must talk to me. Tell me about all that's going on in Brixham—how your garden is getting on, who has been giving parties, and how the servants are; and that nice old parlourmaid, who always had a cough—Fanny, wasn't it? No, not Fanny—Jane."

Cathie could not resist a little harmless misrepresentation.

"I brought Arbuthnot, of course, with me," she said. "She is my maid now, Lucia. It is the same one. She was Jane."

Lucia gave a little giggle of laughter.

"I must ask Harry if he is any relation," she said. "He is Arbuthnot, you know. What a glorious name for a maid! It sounds too grand for words. And I must certainly see her. Dear me, what funny dear old days those were, weren't they? Some time later on, Aunt Cathie, you must let me come and stay with you for a day or two, if it was only to see the Dean's wife. I must have my old room, and I shan't bring a maid at all—not so grand as you; and I must grub in the garden, and look at Aunt Elizabeth playing patience after dinner, and go to bed at ten, and have breakfast at half-past eight. Breakfast here? Oh, it's any time; it's ready when you are. I never come down myself, but there are things to eat, and you can have it in your room."

Lucia was quite admirable at this sort of fluent tenderness, which meant nothing at all to her, but so much to Aunt Cathie. She was delighted to come and sit with her for half an hour, and make her feel at home; for since, against her own better judgment, Aunt Cathie had not been put off, she must certainly try to make her visit agreeable. Besides, she herself saw how her aunt loved to see her shining, as Edgar put it, and Lucia never had enough of that kind of homage. In consequence, the feeling of strangeness which Aunt Cathie had so markedly felt at tea had quite evaporated before Lucia found it necessary to "fly" to receive the last contingent of her guests who would be now