if they were exchanging napkins or rings beneath the table.

At that moment the servant handed a letter on a salver to Maggie,
saying, "From Mrs. Horlock; the servant is waiting an answer, miss."
Grace trembled. Sally whispered to Jimmy, "What can she want?" In a
reassuring voice Maggie said, "She has heard we are having a few
people in to tennis, and she wants to know if she may send us round a
young man; she will come round herself with the General some time
during the afternoon." At the mention of a young man many eyes
gleamed, and Sally said, "You had better go at once and write a note
and say that we shall be delighted." When they went into the verandah
coffee was handed round, and Maggie, as the gentlemen lit their
cigarettes, said to Grace, "Nothing could have happened better; father
is sure to hear of this, we couldn't have kept it from him: now we can
say Mrs. Horlock was our chaperon. None will know when she came, or
when she went away." Then turning to her company, Maggie said, "Now
gentlemen, as soon as you have finished your cigarettes we will
begin."

Sally not only insisted on playing, but on playing with Jimmy; and
Grace, who was striving to struggle into the position of Miss Brookes,
could do nothing but set the girl in the florid dress and the man who
stood next to her to play against them. The garden seemed to absorb
the girls, but Maggie, catching sight of Mrs. Horlock, went to meet
her.

Mrs. Horlock was sixty, but her figure was like a girl's. She led a
blind pug in a complicated leading apparatus, and several other pugs
in various stages of fat and decrepitude followed her. It was not long
before she raised a discussion on hydrophobia, defending the disease