hrouded in a broken coil of black hair their owner's pearly teeth
are detaining an end of, to stop it falling in the paraffin she is
so intent on, as she watches it cooling on the soap-dish.

"I've made it such a jolly big blob it'll take ever so long to cool.
You can, you know, if you go gently. Only then the middle stops soft,
and if you get in a hurry it spoils the clicket." But it is hard
enough now to risk moving the hair over it, and Sally's voice was free
to speak as soon as her little white hand had swept the black coils
back beyond the round white throat. Mrs. Lobjoit's mirror has its
defects apart from some of the quicksilver having been scratched off;
but Rosalind can see the merpussy's image plain enough, and knows
perfectly well that before she looks up she will reap the harvest of
happiness she has been looking forward to. She will "clicket" off the
"blob" with her finger.

The moment of fruition comes, and a filbert thumbnail spuds the
hardened lozenge off the smooth glaze. "There!" says Sally, "didn't
I tell you? Just like ice.... What, mother?" For her mother's question
had been asked, very slightly varied, in a nettle-grasping sense. She
has had time to think.

"_What_ was Tishy's man's name--the other applicant? Christian name,
I mean; not his father's."

"Sir Oughtred Penderfield. Why?"

"I remember there was a small boy in India, twenty-two years ago,
named Penderfield. Is Oughtred his only name?" The nettle-grasping
there was in this! Rosalind felt consoled by her own strength.

"Can't say. He may have a dozen. Never seen him. Don't want to! But
his hair's as black as mine, Tishy says.... I say, mother, isn't it
deliciously smooth?" But this refers to the paraffin lozenge, not
to the hair.

"Yes, darling. Now I want to get to bed, if you've no objection."

"Certainly, mother darling; but say I'm right about the Dragon and
Sir Penderfield. Because I _am_, you know."

"Of course you are, chick. Only you never told me about him; now,
did you?"

"Because I was so honourable. It was a secret. Very well, good-night,
then.... Oh, you poor mother! how cold you are, and I've been keeping
you up! Good-night!"

And off went Sally, leaving her mother to reason with herself about
her own unreasonableness. After all, what was there in the fact that
the little chap she remembered, seven years old, at the Residency at
Khopal twenty odd years ago had grown up and inherited his father's
baronetcy? Wha