disappointed Teenie, though I know you like your tea. Just toy with it,
you know."

"No, I don't know," said Miss Teenie crossly. "I never 'toyed' with my
tea yet, and I'm not going to begin. It'll likely be China tea anyway,
and I'd as soon drink dish-water."

Miss Watson looked bitterly at her sister.

"You'll never rise in the world, Teenie, if you can't _give_ up a little
comfort for the sake of refinement Fancy making a fuss about China tea
when it's handed to you by an earl's granddaughter."

Miss Teenie made no reply to this except to burst--as was a habit of
hers--into a series of violent sneezes, at which her sister's wrath
broke out.

"That's the most uncivilised sneeze I ever heard. If you do that before
Miss Reston, Teenie, I'll be tempted to do you an injury."

Miss Teenie blew her nose pensively. "I doubt I've got a chill changing
my underclothes in the middle of the day, but 'a little pride and a
little pain,' as my mother used to say when she screwed my hair with
curl-papers.... I suppose it'll do if we stay an hour?"

Things are rarely as bad as we anticipate, and, as it turned out, not
only Miss Watson, but the rebellious Miss Teenie, looked back on that
tea-party as one of the pleasantest they had ever taken part in, and
only Heaven knows how many tea-parties the good ladies had attended in
their day.

They were judges of china and fine linen, and they looked appreciatively
at the table. There were the neatest of tea-knives, the daintiest of
spoons, jam glowed crimson through crystal, butter was there in a lordly
dish, cakes from London, delicate sandwiches, Miss Bathgate's best and
lightest in the way of scones, shortbread crisp from the oven of Mrs.
M'Cosh.

And here was Miss Reston looking lovely and exotic in a wonderful
tea-frock, a class of garment hitherto unknown to the Miss Watsons, who
thrilled at the sight. Her welcome was so warm that it seemed to the
guests, accustomed to the thus-far-and-no-further manner of the
Priorsford great ladies, almost exuberant. She led Miss Teenie to the
most comfortable chair, she gave Miss Watson a footstool and put a
cushion at her back, and talked so simply, and laughed so naturally,
that the Miss Watsons forgot entirely to choose their topics and began
on what was uppermost in their minds, the fact that Robina (the little
maid) had actually managed that morning to break the gazogene.

Pamela, who had not a notion what a gazogene was, gasped th