t life is?" said Lettice. "I've had twenty years of
it."

"You haven't had twenty days of it--not _life_. You've been ruled like
a copy-book ever since you were born. I have pitied you, poor little
victim, you cannot guess how much! I begged Mother to try and win you
for to-day. She said she did not believe Starch and Knitting-Pins would
suffer it, but she would try. Wasn't I astonished when I heard you
really were to come!"

"What do you mean by Starch and Knitting-Pins?" asked the bewildered
Lettice.

"Oh, that awful aunt of yours who looks as if she had just come out of
the wash, and your sweet-smiling grandmother who is always fiddling with
knitting-pins--"

Gertrude stopped suddenly. She understood, better than Lettice did
herself, the involuntary, unpremeditated gesture which put a greater
distance between them on the window-seat, and knew in a moment that she
had scandalised her guest.

"My dear creature!" she said with one of her soft laughs, "if you
worship your starchy aunt, I won't say another word! And as to my Lady
Louvaine, I am sure I never meant the least disrespect to her. Of
course she is very sweet and good, and all that: but dear me! have you
been bred up to think you must not label people with funny names?
Everybody does, my dear--no offence meant at all, I assure you."

"I beg your pardon!" said Lettice stiffly--more so, indeed, than she
knew or meant. "If that be what you call `life,' I am afraid I know
little about it."

"And wish for no more!" said Gertrude, laughing. "Well, if I offended
you, I ought to beg pardon. I did not intend it, I am sure. But, my
dear, what a pity you do not crisp your hair, or curl it! That
old-fashioned roll back is as ancient as my grandmother. And a partlet,
I declare! They really ought to let you be a _little_ more properly
dressed. You never see girls with turned-back hair now."

Lettice did not know whether to blush for her deficiencies, or to be
angry with Gertrude for pointing them out. She felt more inclined to
the latter.

"Now, if I had you to dress," said Gertrude complacently, "I should just
put you in a decent, neat corset, with a white satin gown, puffed with
crimson velvet, a velvet hood lined with white satin, a girdle of gold
and pearls, crimson stockings, white satin slippers, a lace rebato, and
a pearl necklace. Oh, how charming you would look! You would not know
yourself. Then I should put a gold bodkin in your hair