ve known it with the lifting of that white girl's parasol.

Can a saintly virgin on a golden panel look sulky? I'm not sure, but
this virgin gave the effect of having been reluctantly torn from such a
background, and she looked distinctly sulky, even angelically cross. She
had not wanted to come into my garden, that was plain; and she lagged
behind the others to gaze at a rose-bush, by way of a protest against
the whole expedition. What she saw to disapprove of in me I was at a
loss to guess, but that she did disapprove was evident. The dazzling
brown eyes, with the afternoon sun glinting between their thick dark
fringes, hated me for something;--was it my existence, or my
advertisement? Then they wandered to Terry, and pitied, rather than
spurned. "You poor, handsome, big fellow," they seemed so say, "so you
are that miserable little man's chauffeur! You must be very unfortunate,
or you would have found a better career. I'm so sorry for you."

"Do sit down, please," I said, lest after all it should occur to Terry
to finish that broken sentence of his. "These chairs will be more
comfortable if I straighten their backs up a little. And this seat round
the tree isn't bad. I--I'll tell my servant to send out tea--we were
going to have it soon--and we can talk things over. It will be
pleasanter."

"What a _lovely_ idea!" exclaimed the auburn lady. "Why, of course we
will. Beechy, you take one of those steamer-chairs. I like a high seat
myself. Come, Maida; the gentlemen have asked us to stay to tea, and
we're going to."

Beechy--the little brown girl--subsided with a babyish meekness that
contradicted a wicked laughing imp in her eyes, into one of the _chaises
longues_ which I had brought up from its knees to a sort of "stand and
deliver" attitude. But the tall white girl (the name of "Maida" suited
her singularly well) did not stir an inch. "I think I'll go on if you
don't mind, Aunt Ka--I mean, Kittie," she said in a soft voice that was
as American in its way as the auburn lady's, but a hundred and fifty
times sweeter. I rather fancied that it must have been grown somewhere
in the South, where the sun was warm, and the flowers as luxuriant as
our Riviera blossoms.

"You will do nothing of the kind," retorted her relative peremptorily.
"You'll just stay here with Beechy and me, till we've done our
business."

"But I haven't anything to do with--"

"You're going with us on the trip, anyhow, if we go. Now, come along