yes, then very carefully and delicately sat down.

Amy Warlock came in; Maggie had met her before and disliked her.
Conversation dealt decently and carefully with the weather, the canary
and Maggie's discovery of London. Maggie was compelled to confess that
she was afraid that she had not discovered London at all. She felt Amy
Warlock's sharp eyes upon them all and, as always when she was in
company that was, she thought, suspicious of her, she became hot and
uncomfortable, she frowned and spoke in short, almost hostile,
sentences.

"They're laughing at my new clothes," she thought, "I wish I'd worn my
old ones ... and anyway these hurt me." She sat up very stiffly, her
hands on her lap, her eyes staring at the little bright water-colour on
the wall opposite. Mrs. Warlock, like a trickling, dancing brook,
continued her talk:

"Of course there's the country. I was brought up as a girl just outside
Salisbury ... So many, many years ago--I always tell my boy that I'm
such an old woman now that I don't belong to his world at all. Just to
sit here and see the younger generation go past. Don't regret your
youth, Miss Cardinal. You'll want it back again one day. I said to
Martin only yesterday ..."

Neither Aunt Anne nor Amy Warlock had anything to say, so that quite
suddenly on the entrance of tea, conversation dropped. They all sat
there and looked at one another. There was a large silver tray with
silver tea-things upon it and a fat swelling china dish that held hot
buttered toast. There was a standing wicker pyramid containing bread
and butter, plates of little yellow and red cakes, shortbread and very
heavy plum cake black with currants.

Mrs. Warlock had ceased all conversation, her eyes were fixed upon the
preparations for tea. The door opened and John Warlock and his son came
in.

Maggie's eyes lighted when she saw Martin Warlock. She behaved as she
might have done had she been in her own room at St. Dreots. She sprang
up from her chair and stood there, smiling, waiting for him. First his
father shook hands with her, then Martin came and stood beside her,
laughing.

His face was flushed and he seemed excited about something, but she
felt nothing save her pleasure at meeting him, and it was only when he
had moved on to her aunt that she was conscious once more of Amy
Warlock's eyes, and wondered whether she had behaved badly in jumping
up to meet him.

As she considered this her anger and her confusion at her