o used to her
godmother's manner that it ceased to alarm her, and once she even
contradicted her as bluntly as though she had been Max or Clement. Even
this had no bad effect, however, for shortly afterwards Mrs
Fotheringham remarked:

"It's a positive relief not to have Miss Munnion here agreeing with
everything I say. It's as fidgeting as a dog that's always wagging its
tail."

But though she got on better than she could have expected with her
godmother, and though Paradise Court was as beautiful and pleasant as
ever, Iris's thoughts were now constantly at Albert Street. Albert
Street, which was no doubt still ugly and disagreeable, hot, and
glaring, and stuffy, and where even the summer sky looked quite
different. Nevertheless there were some very delightful things there,
seen from a distance. When anything amused Iris, Max's freckled face
immediately came before her, with its sympathetic grin of enjoyment;
when she was sad she felt Susie's and Dottie's soft little clinging
fingers in her own; when she was dull she heard Clement's squeaky voice
just ready to burst into a giggle at one of Max's stupid jokes. "It's a
long time since I laughed till I ached," she said to herself. The
peaceful repose of Paradise Court, the silence, which was only broken by
a shriek from the parrot, and the murmurous coo of the pigeons outside,
was indeed almost too complete. It would be nice to hear the hasty
tramp of feet up and down stairs again, or someone shouting "Iris!" from
the top of the house. Even the sound of Clement's one song, "The Ten
Little Niggers," which he performed perpetually and always out of tune,
would be pleasant to the ear. It had often made her cross in Albert
Street, but now the thought of it was more attractive than the sweetest
notes of the nightingales which sung every evening in the garden at
Paradise Court.

One afternoon Iris was walking with her godmother in the little walled
garden where she had found her on the first evening of her arrival. The
tulips were over now, and Mrs Fotheringham's attention was turned to a
certain border which Moore had been planting out under her direction; he
had suffered a good deal during the process, for, being a slow thinker,
he took some time to understand his mistress's meaning, which now and
then escaped him entirely. Often, however, he was afraid to ask her to
repeat an order, because it made her so angry, and in consequence his
mistakes were many and f