emselves with quiet dignity, manifested a
sudden and youthful tendency to slam; Palmer, the parlour-maid could
never be found, except at the heels of her youngest mistress, who seemed
to have requisitioned her entire services; while a fresh young voice, as
imperious as it was melodious, could be heard on almost every floor at
the same time, calling the stately rooms back to life again, and
shivering the cobwebs of monotony as it were by acoustic principles
alone.

The expression of the kindly maiden aunt, who, after having played for
some while with a boisterous and powerful young nephew, gradually
realises that he is becoming too rough for her, is, as everybody knows,
one of tremulous expectancy, in which a half-frightened flickering smile
plays only a deceptive and scarcely convincing part in concealing the
feelings of anxiety and disapproval that lie behind it.

Now there was, as we have seen, little of the maiden aunt in Mrs.
Delarayne's disposition, and yet this is precisely the expression which,
from the moment of Leonetta's arrival at King's Cross, had fastened upon
her features. It was the look of one who, though anxious to humour a
youthful relative as far as possible, was nevertheless determined that
the young creature's pranks should not be allowed to extend to
incendiarism, personal assault and battery, homicide, or anything
equally upsetting. It scarcely requires description: the brows are
permanently slightly raised, the eyes are kept steadily upon the
youthful relative in question in mingled astonishment and fear, while
there is the aforesaid agitated smile, which threatens at any moment to
assume the hard and petulant lines of impatient reproach.

Leonetta had quite properly insisted upon a completely new outfit. She
had not "unpacked" in the accepted sense. She had simply emptied her
boxes into the dust-bin. Some of her things, it is true, had fallen to
Palmer, and to Wilmott, her mother's maid, but very few of them, indeed,
had she been willing to return to her wardrobe or her chests of drawers.

No one could take exception to this procedure. It was perfectly right
and proper. It was the way it was done, as if it had been a forgone and
incontrovertible conclusion, that unnerved Mrs. Delarayne, and drove
Cleopatra, more abashed than indignant, to the quietest corner of the
house for peace and solitude.

Obviously Leonetta had as yet received no check from life, no threat of
an obstacle, or worse st