n your whole body!" Cecilia whispered, apparently addressing
the unoffending cloth--which, having begun life as a dingy green and
black, did not seem greatly the worse for its new decoration. "Hateful
old thing!" A smile suddenly twitched the corners of her mouth.
"Well, she can't stop the money for a new cloth out of this quarter's
allowance, because I've just got it. That's luck, anyhow. I'll give it
to Bob to keep, in case she goes through my desk again." She poured some
ammonia upon the stain, and rubbed gingerly, surveying the result with a
tilted nose. It was not successful. "Shall I try petrol? But petrol's
an awful price, and I've only got the little bottle I use for my gloves.
Anyhow, the horrible old cloth is so old and thin that it will fall to
pieces if I rub it. Oh, it's no use bothering about it--nothing will
make it better." She squeezed the water from the cloth and spread the
stained area over a chair to dry, looking disgustedly at her own dyed
finger-nails. "Now for Avice's shoes before I scrub my hands."

Avice's shoes proved a lengthy task, since the younger Miss Rainham had
apparently discovered some clay to walk through in Regent's Park on her
way home from the last dancing lesson; and well-hardened clay resists
ordinary cleaning methods, and demands edged tools. The luncheon bell
rang loudly before Cecilia had finished. She gave the shoes a final
hurried rub, and then fell to cleansing her hands; arriving in the
dining-room, pink and breathless, some minutes later, to find a dreary
piece of tepid mutton rapidly congealing on her plate.

"I think you might manage to be down in time for meals, Cecilia," was
Mrs. Rainham's chilly greeting.

Cecilia said nothing. She had long realized the uselessness of any
excuses. To be answered merely gave her stepmother occasion for further
fault-finding--you might, as Cecilia told Bob, have a flawless defence
for the sin of the moment, but in that case Mrs. Rainham merely changed
her ground, and waxed eloquent about the sin of yesterday, or of last
Friday week, for which there might happen to be no defence at all. It
was so difficult to avoid being a criminal in Mrs. Rainham's eyes that
Cecilia had almost given up the attempt. She attacked her greasy
mutton and sloppy cabbage in silence, unpleasantly conscious of her
stepmother's freezing glance.

Mrs. Rainham was a short, stout woman, with colourless, rather pinched
features, and a wealth of glorious red hair.