this friend o' Sarah's, isn't she?' Mrs
Clay hazarded.

'Yes, she's a grand lass, is yon. She's always got a joke ready to crack
with you, and doesn't give herself no airs; and she might, for I find
they're a very high family--two dukes in it, and other titles as well,'
said Mr Clay.

'Oh, I don't care about 'er titles; she's a dear young lady in 'erself,
an' I'm sure Sarah'll only learn good from 'er,' said Mrs Clay.

'I wish Sarah'd learn not to give herself airs; you'd think she was a
duke's granddaughter and not the other. I'm sure she looks at me
sometimes as much as to say, "I'm a princess, and you're only a common
man," and treats me as if I was the dirt under her feet, instead of being
her father, to whom she owes everything,' said Mr Clay, with an aggrieved
air.

'She's not good-lookin',' said Mrs Clay, who alluded to Horatia and was
trying to put a word in indirectly for her daughter.

'No, she isn't, there's no denying that; but I'd sooner have her opposite
me at table, for all her plain looks, than I would our Sally.'

'I wouldn't go so far as that. I'm sure w'en the two came in to-night,
an' our girl lookin' so straight an' 'andsome, I felt proud o' 'er; but
the other is a dear young lady, an' keeps us all lively,' she said,
repeating her one remark about Horatia that she was a dear young lady.

'And if you'll believe me, George,' she wrote to her son two days later,
'your father's a different man since that little girl has been here, as
polite to the servants since he spoke sharp to Sykes and the little lady
stared at him so surprised like; and so kind to me I hardly know myself.
Not that I'm not very grateful to him, and know a man like him must have
his worries, and can't always be even-tempered.'

But much had happened during these two days. Sarah had planned these two
days, and, indeed, all the visit, as a succession of excursions in the
motor, picnics, tennis-parties (for the Clays knew every one for miles
round), and rides, and the next morning, accordingly, she said to
Horatia, 'I thought we might go to the lakes for lunch to-day; we might
start directly after breakfast, and get back for dinner in the evening.'

'Oh, haven't you seen the lakes?' asked Horatia in rather a disappointed
tone.

'Yes, of course; but they are always worth going to see,' replied Sarah.
'But if you don't care to see them, or would rather go anywhere else, or
do anything else, you have only to say so, and of cour