Mhor trip fantastically, and I saw a tiny girl take the
hand of an older girl and look admiringly up at her. The older child,
with the awful heartlessness of childhood wriggled her hand away and
turned her back on her small admirer. The poor mite stood trying not to
cry, and presently a still tinier mite came snuggling up to her and took
her hand. 'Now,' I thought, 'having learned how cruel a thing a snub is,
will she be kind?' Not a bit of it. With the selfsame gesture the older
girl had used she wriggled away her hand and turned her back."

"Cruel little wretches," said Pamela, "but it's the same with us older
children. Apart from sin altogether, it must be hard for God to pardon
our childishness ... But about the Miss Watsons--d'you think I might
call on them?"

"Well, they wouldn't call on you, I'm sure of that. Suppose I ask them
to meet you, and then you could fix a day for them to have tea with you?
It would be a tremendous treat for them, and pleasant for you too--they
are very entertaining."

So it was arranged. The Miss Watsons were asked to The Rigs, and to
their unbounded satisfaction spent a most genial hour in the company of
Miss Reston, whose comings and goings they had watched with breathless
interest from behind the elegant sash curtain of Balmoral. On their way
home they borrowed a copy of Debrett and studied it all evening.

It was very confusing at first, but at last they ran their quarry to
earth. "Here she is ... She's the daughter (dau. must mean daughter) of
Quintin John, 10th Baron Bidborough. And this'll be her brother, Quintin
Reginald Feurbras--what names! _Teenie_, her mother was an earl's
daughter!"

"Oh, mercy!" wailed Miss Teenie, quite over-come.

"Yes, see here. 6th Earl of Champertoun--a Scotch earl too! Lady Ann was
her name. Fancy that now!"

"And her so pleasant!" said Miss Teenie.

"It just lets you see," said Miss Watson, "the higher up you get in the
social scale, the pleasanter and freer people are. You see, they've been
there so long they're accustomed to it; their position never gives them
a thought: it's the people who have climbed up who keep on wondering if
you're noticing how grand they are."

"Well, Agnes," said Miss Teenie, "it's a great rise in the world for you
and me to be asked to tea with an earl's granddaughter. There's no
getting over that. I'm thinking we'll need to polish up our manners.
I've an awful habit of drinking my tea with my mouth full. It se