entreated them, to visit it occasionally when
invited to some function or other. Jan's education after her mother's
death had been the thinnest scrape sandwiched between many household
cares and much attendance upon her father's whims. Fay was allowed
classes and visiting governesses, but their father could never bring
himself to spare either of them to the regular discipline of school, and
Cousin Amelia bewailed the desultory training of Anthony's children.

In 1905, Jan and Fay had been to a party at Ribston Hall: tea in the
garden followed by a pastoral play. Anthony was sitting in the balcony,
smoking, when the girls came back. He saw their hansom and ran
downstairs to meet them, as he always did. They were a family who went
in for affectionate greetings.

"Daddie," cried Fay, seizing her father by the arm, "one of the seven
wonders of the world has happened. We have found an interesting person
at Ribston Hall."

Jan took the other arm. "We can't possibly tell you all about it under
an hour, so we'd better go and sit in the balcony." And they gently
propelled him towards the staircase.

"Not if you're going to discuss Cousin Amelia," Anthony protested. "You
have carrying voices, both of you."

"Cousin Amelia is only incidental," Jan said, when they were all three
seated in the balcony. "The main theme is concerned with a queer little
pixie creature called Meg Morton. She's a pupil-governess, and she's
sixteen and a half--just the same age as Fay."

"She doesn't reach up to Jan's elbow," Fay added, "and she chaperons the
girls for music and singing, and sits in the drawing-class because the
master can't be quite seventy yet."

"She's the wee-est thing you ever saw, and they dress her in Cousin
Amelia's discarded Sunday frocks."

"That's impossible," Anthony interrupted. "Amelia is so massive and
square; if the girl's so small she'd look like 'the Marchioness.'"

"She does, she does!" Jan cried delightedly. "Of course the garments are
'made down,' but in the most elderly way possible. Daddie, can you
picture a Botticelli angel of sixteen, with masses of Titian-red hair,
clad in a queer plush garment once worn by Cousin Amelia, that retains
all its ancient frumpiness of line. And it's not only her appearance
that's so quaint, _she_ is quaint inside."

"We were attracted by her hair," Fay went on "(You'll go down like a
ninepin before that hair), and we got her in a corner and hemmed her in
and declared it