us all as things that counted for nothing save to fetch and carry for
her charge. But the Honourable Beatrice could condescend.

The queer chances of later years come between me and a distinctly
separated memory of that childish face. When I think of Beatrice, I
think of her as I came to know her at a later time, when at last I came
to know her so well that indeed now I could draw her, and show a hundred
little delicate things you would miss in looking at her. But even then I
remember how I noted the infinite delicacy of her childish skin and the
fine eyebrow, finer than the finest feather that ever one felt on the
breast of a bird. She was one of those elfin, rather precocious little
girls, quick coloured, with dark hair, naturally curling dusky hair
that was sometimes astray over her eyes, and eyes that were sometimes
impishly dark, and sometimes a clear brown yellow. And from the very
outset, after a most cursory attention to Rabbits, she decided that the
only really interesting thing at the tea-table was myself.

The elders talked in their formal dull way--telling Nannie the trite
old things about the park and the village that they told every one, and
Beatrice watched me across the table with a pitiless little curiosity
that made me uncomfortable.

"Nannie," she said, pointing, and Nannie left a question of my mother's
disregarded to attend to her; "is he a servant boy?"

"S-s-sh," said Nannie. "He's Master Ponderevo."

"Is he a servant boy?" repeated Beatrice.

"He's a schoolboy," said my mother.