ow; and brushing
will do the rest."

"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly.

She had never considered her hands from the aesthetic standpoint. She
had been content to keep them clean. She considered them now,
ruefully. It is indeed hard to do the work of two sets of chambers in
the Temple without the hands showing it. Her nails were very short and
rather jagged; a thumbnail was broken; the skin about them was rough
and broken. She looked from them to the white, carefully kept hands,
with pink shining nails, of the Honourable John Ruffin, and sighed.

"I think that for the future you'd better work in gloves," he said in a
sympathetic tone.

"I think I'd better try," said Pollyooly doubtfully. To her firm
spirit the idea of working in gloves savoured of dilettantism.

"You see a lady--and all red Deepings are gentlefolk of course--a lady
must have good hands," said the Honourable John Ruffin in a deprecating
tone.

"Yes, sir," said Pollyooly solemnly.

It was the first time that the meaning of the fact that the Deeping
blood ran in her veins had been brought home to her; and she flushed
faintly with honourable pride at the thought that she was a lady, for
all that she did the work of two sets of chambers in the Temple. She
sat a little more upright.

"And there's another thing," he went on. "At Pyechurch I shall call
you Pollyooly; and you will call me John, or cousin John."

"I--I'll try to remember, sir," said Pollyooly, again flushing with
pride.

"You'll soon get into it," said the Honourable John Ruffin cheerfully.
"And it will be very nice for me to have a cousin always to hand."

Pollyooly flushed again; and the gratitude in her eyes as they rested
on him was beyond words.

The train, one of the South-Eastern best, sauntered leisurely through
the pleasant, sunny landscape, stopping meditatively at stations and
between stations, as the whim took it, but at last it reached Hythe.

They drove from there, proudly, in a wagonette to Pyechurch, along the
edge of Romney Marsh, with the shining sea on their left hand.
Pollyooly enjoyed the felicity of showing it to the Lump, who had never
before seen it; but she was somewhat taken aback by his hailing a ship
as a baa-lamb.

They found Mrs. Wilson eagerly awaiting them. There was no doubt of
her affection for the Honourable John Ruffin. She had a sumptuous tea
ready for them; and after the journey and its excitement they dealt
with it heartily.

Any fear