shawled and holding some soft burden in her arms, appeared on the
threshold, and stood there for a moment, as though trying the quality
of the air outside. Her pause of inspection seemed to satisfy her,
for she moved forward, leaving the door open behind her, and,
stepping across the lawn, settled herself in a wicker chair under
an apple-tree, which had only just shed its blossoms on the turf
below. She had hardly done so when one of the distant doors opening
on the gravel path flew open, and another maiden, a slim creature
garbed in aesthetic blue, a mass of reddish brown hair flying back
from her face, also stepped out into the garden.

'Agnes!' cried the new-comer, who had the strenuous and dishevelled
air natural to one just emerged from a long violin practice. 'Has
Catherine come back yet?'

'Not that I know of. Do come here and look at pussy; did you ever
see anything so comfortable?'

'You and she look about equally lazy. What have you been doing all
the afternoon?'

'We look what we are, my dear. Doing? Why, I have been attending
to my domestic duties, arranging the flowers, mending my pink dress
for to-morrow night, and helping to keep mamma in good spirits; she
is depressed because she has been finding Elizabeth out in some
waste or other, and I have been preaching to her to make Elizabeth
uncomfortable if she likes, but not to worrit herself. And after
all, pussy and I have come out for a rest. We've earned it, haven't
we, Chattie? And as for you, Miss Artistic, I should like to know
what you've been doing for the good of your kind since dinner. I