e invitation being transmitted by telephone Steptoe urged Letty to
accept it. "It'll be all in the wye of madam's gettin' used to
things--a bit at a time like."

"But I don't think she likes me."

"If madam won't stop to think whether people likes 'er or not I think
madam 'd get for'arder. Besides madam'll pretty generally always find
as love-call wykes love-echo, as the syin' goes."

Which, as a matter of fact, was what Letty did find. She found it from
the minute of entering the car and taking her seat, when Miss Walbrook
exclaimed heartily: "What a lovely dress! And the hat's too sweet!
Suits you exactly, doesn't it? My dear, I've the greatest bother ever
to find a hat that doesn't make me look like a scarecrow."

From the naturalness of the tone there was no suspecting the cost of
these words to the speaker, and the subject was one in which Letty was
at home. In turn she could compliment Miss Walbrook's appearance, duly
admiring the toque of prune-colored velvet, with a little bunch of
roses artfully disposed, and the coat of prune-colored Harris tweed.
In further discussing the length of the new skirts and the chances of
the tight corset coming back they found topics of common interest. The
fact that they were the topics which came readiest to the lips of both
made it possible to maintain the conversation at its normal
give-and-take, while each could pursue the line of her own summing up
of the other.

To Letty Miss Walbrook seemed friendlier than she had expected, only
spasmodically so. Her kindly moods came in spurts of which the
inspiration soon gave out. "I think she's sad," was Letty's comment to
herself. Sadness, in Letty's use of words, covered all the emotions
not distinctly cheerful or hilarious.

She knew nothing about Miss Walbrook, except that it appeared from
this conversation that she lived with an aunt, whose car they were
using. That she was a friend of the prince's had been several times
repeated, but all information ended there. To Letty she seemed
old--between thirty and forty. Had she known her actual age she would
still have seemed old from her knowledge of the world and general
sophistication. Letty's own lack of sophistication kept her a child
when she was nearly twenty-three. That Miss Walbrook was the girl to
whom the prince was engaged had not yet crossed her thought.

At the same time, since she knew that girl she brought her to the
forefront of Letty's consciousness. She was neve