To-day she cut more lavishly than usual in f.a.n.n.y's honour, and when, just as the lunch gong sounded, she rested from her labours, the lovely old house was a dream of beauty and colour and scent.

Snapdragons, in every shade of yellow and pink and deep, rich rose, stood in tall jars, wherever there was a dark corner to be lighted up.

Big blue bowls held ma.s.ses of roses of every describable hue, whose fragrance scented all the house; and every available inch of s.p.a.ce had been utilized as a resting-place for one or more vases of the sweetest, gayest blooms imaginable.

Even Toni was satisfied at last, and she hurried over her lunch in good spirits. Just as she was rising from the table a thought struck her.

"Kate, do you think we might have tea in here? You see--we ought to have a table, I think--and it wouldn't matter for once, would it?"

Kate, who had experienced sundry qualms at the idea of a feast of shrimps in the charming, old-world drawing-room, gave a decided a.s.sent.

"It would be much more suitable, ma'am. I could put a pretty lace cloth on the table, and then with some flowers it would look quite nice."

"Thank you, Kate." Toni gave vent to a relieved sigh. "You and Maggie are really treasures in helping me. Oh--how is Mrs. Blades!"

Mrs. Blades was better; but Kate, who had a shrewd notion of the old woman's real opinion of her pretty mistress, was not ill-pleased to inform Toni that the bronchial attack from which she was suffering made it impossible for her to supervise the household affairs for to-day at least.

"Well, you must look after things for me, Kate," said Toni, smiling in a friendly fashion at the girl; and Kate, although she had lived in "smart" houses, and knew that shrimps and blanc-mange were not usually met with at tea, succ.u.mbed still more completely to that friendly little smile.

"Why shouldn't she have her tea-party as she likes it?" she said to herself as she went out. "The master's away, and she's not likely to do this sort of thing when he's about." Kate, who was thirty-one, and experienced in the ways of the world, was quite aware of the element of awe in Toni's love for her husband--an element of which Toni herself was as yet wholly unsuspicious. "And I've no doubt this young lady as is coming down isn't used to great things. You can see as Mrs. Rose hasn't lived with anyone partikler--but she's a real little lady in her ways, for all that," concluded this authority on the ways of gentlefolk.

Punctually at three o'clock Miss Gibbs arrived; and was shown into the drawing-room, where Toni awaited her coming.

To tell the truth Miss Gibbs was a little awed by the unexpected grandeur of her surroundings; and not even the consciousness of her new linen frock and elaborately-trimmed hat could give her quite her usual a.s.surance.

She followed Andrews meekly across the hall, hardly daring to lift her eyes; and when the man threw open the drawing-room door and ushered her in, f.a.n.n.y unconsciously moderated her usual hearty footstep and endeavoured to make her entry as inconspicuous as possible.

Toni, who had not heard the cab arrive, jumped up hastily from her low chair and ran to meet her cousin, while Andrews discreetly withdrew and closed the door.

"f.a.n.n.y! How glad I am to see you!" Toni hugged Miss Gibbs affectionately. "I'd have come to meet you but I was so late with lunch that I hadn't time."

"I found a cab waiting for me," said f.a.n.n.y, returning her embrace. "You were a dear to send it, Toni. You're quite a way from the station, aren't you?"

"I suppose we are," said Toni carelessly. "But how are you, Fan? And Auntie--and Lu and all of them?"

"Mother's first-rate and longing to see you when you can get up to town.

Everyone's all right," said f.a.n.n.y comfortably. "Lu's been in mischief again, though. She and some of the girls from her school played truant t'other day and went to see a County cricket-match. You know cricket's the craze this term, and they got their money stolen and couldn't get home, and Lu didn't land up till ten o'clock at night!"

"You don't mean it! What did Auntie say?"

"She didn't say much then, 'cause Lu was cryin' and nearly dead with tramping for miles; but next day she got a jolly good whipping and was shut up on bread and water all over Sunday."

"Oh, poor Lu!" Toni felt very pitiful towards the hapless cricket enthusiast. "After all, Fan, you and I once ran away to see the Boat Race on our own!"

"Yes, and we got jolly well punished for it, too! I can remember Ma's slipper to this day!"

"Well, you ought to be sorry for Lu!"

"Serve her right," said Miss Gibbs with sisterly severity. "Cricket, indeed! What do girls want with cricket! Anyhow, she won't do it again in a hurry--Ma saw to that!"

"And how's Josh, Fan?" Toni saw that no sympathy was to be looked for from the culprit's sister.

"A 1. I say, Toni, where's Mr. Rose?" f.a.n.n.y, regaining some of her usual a.s.surance, looked round her vaguely.

"He has had to go up to town. But I thought you wouldn't mind, Fan. I want to show you the house and have a real good talk."

"My! It _is_ a house and no mistake!" f.a.n.n.y gazed about the beautiful room with frank admiration. "I thought the man must be going wrong when he turned in here--and what lovely gardens you've got."

"Yes, they are jolly, aren't they? Well, shall we go over the house before tea or after? It's very nearly four, and I said we'd have tea early."

"I'm glad of that." f.a.n.n.y beamed approval. "To tell you the truth, Toni, I hadn't time for much lunch. We're supposed to shut at one, you know, but of course we don't get off at once, and to-day everything went wrong! At the last minute I upset a box of ribbons, and the spiteful things all went and got unrolled, and then that odious little Jackson--you know, the shopwalker I told you about--came and slanged me like anything."

"What a shame!" Toni had been one of the workers of the world too recently to have lost sympathy with the grievances of those who work. "I wish you could leave the old shop, f.a.n.n.y. Why don't you and Josh get married?"

"Too soon." f.a.n.n.y was of a prudent nature. "We _must_ wait till Josh gets a rise, and I can't afford to leave the shop. You see, I must have a few clothes before I marry ... by the way, Toni, what about your clothes? You didn't get much when you married, did you?"

"No, but before we came here we went up to town and stayed at the Russell for two days and did a whole heap of shopping." Toni stifled a sigh at the thought of those long hours spent in shops. "You see I didn't really know what to get, so Owen went, with me, and I got a lot of things ready-made, and was fitted for others, so I have quite a trousseau by now!"

"That skirt's well-cut," said Miss Gibbs, surveying her cousin critically. "Blue serge always looks well--and that white blouse is good thick silk."

"I'm glad you like it. Owen likes me in these low collars, and they're cool." Toni looked at the clock. "But come upstairs and take off your hat and we'll have tea straight away."

Nothing loth, Miss Gibbs agreed; and went into fresh raptures when she saw Toni's bedroom.

"My! What lovely furniture!" She went up to the toilet-table and began to examine it. "And these silver brushes and things--are they all yours?"

"Yes. Owen gave them to me."

"Well to be you," commented Miss Gibbs briskly. "What a lovely long gla.s.s, too! Can't you see yourself properly just!"

She stood in front of the gla.s.s so long that Toni grew impatient.

"Hurry up, Fan! I'm sure tea's ready and I'm dying for some. I hadn't much lunch."

Thus incited, Miss Gibbs laid aside the flowery hat she had been admiring, disclosing a much curled and waved _coiffure_, and together the cousins ran downstairs, just as Andrews carried in the silver tea-pot and the hot cakes.

Kate, true to her word, had made the best of the oval table. She had laid upon it the finest, laciest cloth she could find, and had placed in the centre a tall jar of lilies, while here and there she had found room for small silver bowls of pink roses. The silver tea-tray, with its thin china cups and saucers, stood proudly at the head of the table; and so far nothing could have been more charming.

But alas! Even Kate could not hide the eminent unsuitability of the feast itself to its elegant surroundings. True, the bread and b.u.t.ter was of wafer-like thinness, there were hot cakes of the crispest, finest variety, and the plum-cake which was Martha's welcome to the bride was of the richest, most tempting description.

But side by side with those delicacies was a dish of shrimps, in all their native vulgarity; and further down, almost hidden in fact by the flowery centrepiece, was a gla.s.s dish containing a velvety white cream whose real place should have been on the dinner-table.

For a moment Toni's heart misgave her as she saw these things in their blatancy; and she wished she had stuck to the usual tiny sandwiches which Martha sent up when she and Owen were alone. Then she remembered, gratefully, that f.a.n.n.y was hungry, and common sense whispered that to a girl who had lunched lightly a sandwich was unsatisfying fare.

As for f.a.n.n.y, her spirits, momentarily damped by the sight of the silver tray, rose with a bound as she surveyed the table.

"I say, Toni, what a spread! Shrimps, I declare! Well, I thought you'd have been much too smart nowadays to think of them!"