holidays? yes, I know. Monsieur, no doubt, is at one of the great
schools that are nowhere but in England, where they stay till they are
men."

"We stay," said Jock, making an almost convulsive effort, "till we are
nineteen. We like to stay as long as we can."

"How innocent," said the girl with a pretty elderly look of superiority
and patronage; and then she burst into a laugh, which neither Lucy nor
Jock knew how to take, and turned back again in the twinkling of an eye
to Lady Randolph, who had relapsed into silence. "And you drive in the
afternoon," she said. "I have already made my observations. And the baby
in the middle, between. And Sir Tom always. He goes out and he goes in,
and one sees him continually. I already know all the habits of the
house."

"You were not so very tired, then, after all. Why did you not come down
stairs and join us in what we were doing?"

The young lady did not make any articulate reply, but her answer was
clear enough. She cast a glance across the table to the Contessa, and
laid her hand upon her own cheek. Lucy was a little mystified by this
pantomime, but to Lady Randolph there was no difficulty about it. "That
is easily understood," she said, "when one is _sur le retour_. But the
same precautions are not necessary with all."

A smile came upon the girl's lip. "I am sympathetic," she said. "Oh,
troppo! I feel just like those that I am with. It is sometimes a
trouble, and sometimes it is an advantage." This was to Lucy like the
utterance of an oracle, and she understood it not.

"Another time," she said kindly, "you must not only observe us from the
window, but come down and share what we are doing. Jock will show you
the park and the grounds, and I will take you to the village. It is
quite a pretty village, and the cottages are very nice now."

The young stranger's eyes blazed with intelligence. She seemed to
perceive everything at a glance.

"I know the village," she said, "it is at the park gates, and Milady
takes a great deal of trouble that all is nice in the cottages. And
there is an old woman that knows all about the family, and tells legends
of it; and a school and a church, and many other _objets-de-piete_. I
know it like that," she cried, holding out the pretty pink palm of her
hand.

"This information is preternatural," said Lady Randolph. "You are
astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock
thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with somethin