ough married these thousand years
to an Englishman I am a Scot by birth----"

But Anne heard no more, although her ears were thirsty. Mrs. Nunn
brought her amiable nothings to a close, and a moment later they were
ascending the great staircase, where the pretty little Queen and her
stately husband smiled alike on the just and the unjust.

Mrs. Nunn entered Anne's room before passing on to her own. As hostess
to her young relative whose income would not have permitted her to
visit this most fashionable of winter cities uninvited, it behooved
her to see that the guest lacked no comfort. She was a selfish old
woman, but she rarely forgot her manners.

"These coloured servants are so inefficient," she remarked as she
peered into the water jars and shook the mosquito netting. "This is
my third visit here, so they are as disposed to respect my orders
as their limited intelligence and careless habits will permit. I
should always advise you to look in and under the bed--not for bad
characters, but for caterpillars as long as your two hands, to say
nothing of ants. There are no snakes on the island, but I believe land
crabs have been seen on the stairs, and I am sure I never should
recover if I got into bed with one. The maid will bring your coffee
about six. I shall not appear till the half-after-nine breakfast."

"Then you will not mind if I go out for a walk?"

"Dear me, no. This is not London. But of course you will not permit a
gentleman to attend you."

"As I do not know any----"

"But you will," said Mrs. Nunn amiably. "You are handsome, my dear, if
not quite _a la mode_. I am glad you must wear white in this climate.
It becomes you far better than black. Good night."

She was gone at last. Anne locked the door that she might know to the
full the joy of being alone. She shook down her hair impatiently. In
spite of her twenty-two years, she had worn it in pendant braids, save
at the dinner hour, until her capture by Mrs. Nunn. It was rich,
heavy, dark hair, bright with much gold, worn in a bunch of curls on
either side of the face and coiled low on the neck. Anne made a
little face at herself in the glass. She knew that she possessed a
noble, straight, full figure, but she saw no beauty in the sunburnt
skin, the square jaw, the eyebrows as wide as her finger. Her mouth
was also too large, her eyelashes too short. She had her ideals of
beauty, and, having read many romances, they were the conventional
ideals of th