murmur again,
bidding her to beware.

She turned from the subject with ready versatility, obedient to the
danger-signal. "Oh, there is Rose! I am afraid I ran away from her after
dinner. They went upstairs for coffee, but I was so dreadfully afraid of
being stopped that I hung behind and escaped. I do hope the Colonel won't
be in a wax again. But I don't see that there was anything wicked in it;
for Lady Grace herself is coming to look on presently."

"I skated with Miss de Vigne nearly all the afternoon," observed Sir
Eustace. "But she is a regular ice-maiden. I couldn't get any enthusiasm
out of her. Tell me, is she like that all through? Or is it just a pose?"

"Oh, I don't know," Dinah said. "I've never got through the outer crust.
But then of course I'm far beneath her."

"How so?" asked Sir Eustace.

She laughed up at him with the happy confidence of a child. "Can't you
see it for yourself? I--I am a mere guttersnipe compared to the de
Vignes. They live in a great house with lots of servants and cars. They
never do a thing for themselves. I don't suppose Rose could do her hair
to save her life. While we--we live in a tumble-down, ramshackle old
place, and do all the work ourselves. I've never been away from home in
my life before. You see, we're poor, and Billy's schooling takes up a lot
of money. I had to leave school when he first went as a boarder. And that
is three years ago now. So I have forgotten all I ever learnt."

"Except dancing," he suggested.

"Oh, well, that's born in me. I couldn't very well forget that. My
mother--" Dinah hesitated momentarily--"my mother was a dancer before she
married."

"And she taught you?" asked Sir Eustace.

"No, no! She never taught me anything except useful things--like cooking
and sewing and house-work. And I detest them all," said Dinah frankly. "I
like sweeping the garden and digging the potatoes far better."

"She keeps you busy then," commented Sir Eustace, with semi-humorous
interest.

"Busy isn't the word for it," declared Dinah. "I'm going from morning
till night. We do the washing at home too. I get up at five and go to bed
at nine. I make nearly all my own clothes too. That's why I haven't got
any," she ended naively.

He laughed. "Not really! But what makes you work so hard as that? You're
wasting all your best time. You'll never be so young again, you know."

"I know!" cried Dinah, and suddenly a wild gust of rebellion went
through her. "It's ha