hem how anxious you are to make
their acquaintance."

"I say, mother," Michael protested. "Oh, no, don't, mother. I really
don't want to know them."

Mrs. Fane smiled at him, and told him not to be a foolish boy. After
lunch, in her own gracious and distinguished manner which Michael always
admired, Mrs. Fane spoke to the two sisters and presently beckoned to
Michael who crossed the room, feeling rather as if he were going in to
bat first for his side.

"I don't think I know your name," said Mrs. Fane to the elder sister.

"McDonnell--Norah McDonnell, and this is my sister Kathleen."

"Scotch?" asked Mrs. Fane vaguely and pleasantly.

"No, Irish," contradicted the younger sister. "At least by extraction.
McDonnell is an Irish name. But we live in Burton-on-Trent. Father and
mother are coming down later on."

She spoke with the jerky speech of the Midlands, and Michael rather
wished she did not come from Burton-on-Trent, not on his own account,
but because his mother would be able to point out to him how right she
had been about their provincialism.

"Are you going anywhere this evening?" Michael managed to ask at last.

"I suppose we shall go on the pier. We usually go on the pier. Eh, but
it's rather dull in Bournemouth. I like Llandudno better. Llandudno's
fine," said the elder Miss McDonnell with fervour.

Mrs. Fane came to the rescue of an awkward conversation by asking the
Miss McDonnells if they would take pity on her son and invite him to
accompany them. And so it was arranged.

"Happy, Michael?" asked his mother when the ladies, with many smiles,
had withdrawn to their rooms.

"Yes. I'm all right," said Michael. "Only I rather wish you hadn't asked
them so obviously. It made me feel rather a fool."

"Dearest boy, they were delighted at the idea of your company. They seem
quite nice people too. Only, as I said, very provincial. Older, too,
than I thought at first."

Michael asked how old his mother thought they were, and she supposed
them to be about twenty-seven and thirty. Michael was inclined to
protest against this high estimate, but since he had spoken to the Miss
McDonnells, he felt that after all his mother might be right.

In the evening his new friends came down to dinner much enwrapped in
feathers, and Michael thought that Kathleen looked very beautiful in the
crimson lamplight of the dinner-table.

"How smart you are, Michael, to-night!" said Mrs. Fane.

"Oh, well, I thought as I'd