one to annoy you?"

"I can't think what made you do anything so stupid as that. I can't
think. I can't think. So many people may have seen you go in."

"Well, Mother darling, surely by this time," said Pauline, "everybody
must know we are really engaged."

Her mother stood in an access of irritation.

"And don't you understand how that makes it all the worse? Please never
do such an inconsiderate thing again. You can imagine how much it upset
Monica, when she ran back to tell me."

"Why didn't she come in and fetch me?" asked Pauline. "That would have
been much easier. I think she thoroughly enjoyed making a great fuss
about nothing. Everybody has been criticizing me lately. I know you all
disapprove of anybody's being in love."

"Pauline, when you are to blame, you shouldn't say such unkind things
about Monica."

"I have to say what I think sometimes," Pauline replied, rebelliously.

"And as for Guy," Mrs. Grey went on, "I am astonished at his
thoughtlessness. I can't understand how he could dream of letting you
come into his house. I can't understand it."

"Yes, but why shouldn't I go in?" Pauline persisted. "Darling Mother,
you go on being angry with me, but you don't tell me why I shouldn't go
in."

"Can't you understand what the Wychford people might think?"

Pauline shook her head.

"Well, I sha'n't say any more about it," Mrs. Grey decided. "But you
must promise me never, never to do such a foolish thing again."

"I'll promise you never to go to Guy's house," said Pauline. "But I
can't promise never to do foolish things when such perfectly ordinary
things are called foolish."

Mrs. Grey looked helplessly round her, but as neither of her two elder
daughters was present she had nothing to say; and Pauline, who thought
that all the fuss was due to nothing but Monica's unwarranted
interference, had nothing to say, either; so they walked along the
herbaceous borders, each with a demeanor of reproach for the other's
failure to understand. The snapdragons lolled upon the sun with
gold-bloomed anthers, and drank more and still more color until they
were drenched beyond the deepest dyes of crimson, extinguishing the
paler hues of rose and chrome which yet at moth-time would show like
lamps when the others had dulled in the discouragement of twilight.

"You mustn't think anything more about it," said her mother, after a
long pause. "I'm sure it was only heedlessness. I don't think you can
say I'm too str