are white souls, for to them I am sent."

This was sufficient: in another minute Lucia, Georgie and Peppino were
all accepted as pupils, and presently they went out into the garden,
where the Guru sat on the ground in a most complicated attitude which
was obviously quite out of reach of Mrs Quantock.

"One foot on one thigh, other foot on other thigh," he explained. "And
the head and back straight: it is good to meditate so."

Lucia tried to imagine meditating so, but felt that any meditation so
would certainly be on the subject of broken bones.

"Shall I be able to do that?" she asked. "And what will be the effect?"

"You will be light and active, dear lady, and ah--here is other dear
lady come to join us."

Mrs Quantock had certainly made one of her diplomatic errors on this
occasion. She had acquiesced on the telephone in her Guru going to
tiffin with Lucia, but about the middle of her lunch, she had been
unable to resist the desire to know what was happening at The Hurst.
She could not bear the thought that Lucia and her Guru were together
now, and her own note, saying that it was uncertain whether the Guru
would come to the garden party or not filled her with the most uneasy
apprehensions. She would sooner have acquiesced in her Guru going to
fifty garden-parties, where all was public, and she could keep an eye
and a control on him, rather than that Lucia should have "enticed him
in,"--that was her phrase--like this to tiffin. The only consolation
was that her own lunch had been practically inedible, and Robert had