urse_ you must come";
but he only smiled at her and said, "Some day, perhaps."

"Honey sandwiches, if you come at tea-time," she reminded him. "D'_you_
like them, Rhoda?" She used the name prettily, half shyly, with one of
her luminous, friendly looks. "They're Peter's favourite food, you know."

But Rhoda didn't know; Peter had never told her; perhaps because it would
be extravagant to have them, perhaps because he never put even foods into
class-lists. Only Lucy knew without being told, probably because it was
her favourite food too.

When Lucy went, it was as if a ray of early spring sunshine had stolen
into the room and gone. A luminous person: that was the thing Rhoda felt
her to be; a study in clear pale lights; one would not have been
surprised if she had crept in on a wind from a strange fairy world with
her arms full of cold wet primroses, and danced out, taking with her the
souls of those who dwelt within. Rhoda wasn't jealous now, if she had
ever had a touch of that.

Neither Peter nor Rhoda went to the Urquharts' house, which was a long
way off. But Lucy came again, many times, to Greville Street, through
that spring and summer, stroking the cat's fur backwards, laughing at
Peter, shyly friendly to Rhoda.

And then for a time her laughter was sad and her eyes wistful, because
her father died. She said once, "I feel so stranded now, Peter; cut off
from what was my life; from what really is my life, you know. Father and
Felicity and I were so disreputable always, and as long as I had father
I could be disreputable too, whenever I felt I couldn't bear being
prosperous. I had only to go inside the house and there I was--you know,
Peter?--it was all round me, and I was part of it.... Now I'm cut off
from all that sort of thing. Denis and I _are_ so well off, d'you know.
Everything goes right. Denis's friends are all so happy and successful
and beautifully dressed. I _like_ them to be, of course; they are joys,
like the sun shining; only..."

"The poor are always with you," suggested Peter. "You can always come to
Greville Street, if you can't find them nearer at hand. And when you come
we'll take Algernon's blue neck-ribbon off, that none of us may appear
beautifully dressed."

"But I _like_ Algernon's blue bow," Lucy protested. "I love people to be
bright and beautiful.... That's why I like Denis so much, you know. Only
I'm not sure I properly belong, that's all."

Obviously the remedy was to come to Gr