"Loveday, ma'am."

"What a strange, old-fashioned name, to be sure," commented the taffetas
angel, with a crystal sounding titter, "'tis as good as the heroine in a
play. Whom were you called for, child?"

"My mother, ma'am," said Loveday, and now her cheek had ceased to burn
and looked pale, but she raised her eyes and confronted the vision
steadily.

Mrs. Lear coughed.

"I declare I should like to do a watercolour drawing of you, Loveday,"
went on Miss Le Pettit, "what do you say? Will you come up to the Manor
one day and let me paint your portrait?"

Loveday had not a notion what that process might be, but had she taken
it to be the blackest witchcraft (as she very likely would if she saw
it) she would still not have blenched. Her eye lightened, some instinct
told her that had she been as all the other girls, the Cherries and
Primroses, this wonderful lady would not have looked twice at her. At
last her singularity was standing her in good stead. Confidence came to
her, even a feeling of slight scorn for the world she knew, a feeling,
indeed, to which she was not altogether a stranger, but which up till
now she had stifled in affright at its presumption.

"What do you say, Mrs. Lear?" asked Miss Le Pettit, turning with her
charming condescension to the old woman, whom, after all, she was merely
visiting on a little matter of a recipe for elderflower-water, "what do
you say? Would she not look picturesque with an orange kerchief over her