failed to enchant her; seen across a fast diminishing breadth of
wind-darkened blue water, bathed in golden mid-morning light, its
villas of delicious grey half buried in billows of delicious
green, its lawns and terraces crowning fluted grey-stone cliffs from
whose feet a broad beach shelved gently into the sea, it seemed more
beautiful to Miss Manvers than anything she had ever dreamed of.

But what was to be her reception there, what her status, what her
fortunes?

"I've been thinking," Mrs. Standish announced when a sidelong glance
had reassured her as to their practical privacy, "about Miss Manvers."

"I hope to Heaven you've doped out a good one," Savage interrupted
fervently. "In the cold grey dawn it doesn't look so good to me. But
then I'm only a duffer. Perhaps it's just as well; if I'd been a good
liar I might have married to keep my hand in. As it is, I never forget
to give thanks, in my evening prayers, for my talented little sister."

"Are you finished?" Mrs. Standish inquired frigidly.

"I'd better be."

"Then, please pay close attention, Miss Manvers. To begin with, I'm
going to change your name. From now on it's Sara Manwaring--Sara
without the _h_."

"Manwaring with the _w_ silent, as in wrapper and wretch?" Savage
asked politely.

For Sally's benefit Mrs. Standish spelled the word patiently.

"And the record of the fair impostor?" Savage prompted.

"That's very simple. Miss Manwaring came to me yesterday with a letter
of introduction from Edna English. Edna sailed for Italy last
Saturday, and by the time she's back Aunt Abby will have forgotten to
question Miss Manwaring's credentials."

"What did I tell you?" Mr. Savage wagged a solemn head at Sally.
"There's Art for you!"

"She comes from a family prominent socially in"--Mrs. Standish paused
a fraction of a second--"Massillon, Ohio--"

"Is there any such place?"

"Of course--"

"What a lot you do know, Adele!"

"But through a series of unhappy accidents involving the family
fortunes was obliged to earn her own living."

"Is that all?"

"Isn't it enough?"

"Plenty. Simple, succinct, stupendous! It has only one flaw."

"And that, if you please?" Mrs. Standish demanded, bristling a trifle.

"It ain't possible for anyone to be prominent socially in a place
named Massillon, Ohio. It can't be done--not in a place I never heard
of before."

"Do you understand, Miss Manwaring?" the woman asked, turning an
impatient shoulder t