And sometimes, in the course of these conversations, Arthur would in a brotherly way call Mrs. Carr “Mildred,” while occasionally, in the tone of a spinster aunt, she would address him as “Arthur,” a practice that, once acquired, she soon found was, like all other bad habits, not easy to get rid of.  For somehow in all these expeditions she was continually at his side, striving, and not without success, to weave herself into the substance of his life, and to make herself indispensable to him, till at last he grew to look upon her almost as a sister.

But beyond this he never went, and to her advances he was as cold as ice, simply because he never noticed them, and she was afraid of making them more obvious for fear that she would frighten him away.  He thought it the most natural thing in the world that he and Mildred should live together like brother and sister, and be very fond of each other as “sich,” whilst she thought him—­just what he was—­the blindest of fools, and then loved him the more for his folly.  The sisterly relationship did not possess the same charms for Mildred that it did for Arthur; they looked at matters from different points of view.

One morning, peeping through a big telescope that was fixed in the window of the little boudoir which formed an entrance lobby to the museum, Mrs. Carr saw a cloud of smoke upon the horizon.  Presently the point of a mast poked up through the vapour as though the vessel were rising out of the ocean, then two more mastheads and a red and black funnel, and last of all a great grey hull.

“Hurrah!” called out Mrs. Carr, with one eye still fixed to the telescope and the remainder of her little face all screwed up in her efforts to keep the other closed, “it’s the mail; I can see the Donald Currie flag, a white C on a blue ground.”

“Well, I am sure, Mildred, there’s no need for you to make your face look like a monkey, if it is; you look just as though the corner of your mouth were changing places with your eyebrow.”

“Agatha, you are dreadfully rude; when the fairies took your endowments in hand, they certainly did not forget the gift of plain speech.  I shall appeal to Mr. Heigham; do I look like a monkey, Mr. Heigham?  No, on second thoughts, I won’t wait for the inevitable compliment.  Arthur, hold your tongue and I will tell you something.  That must be the new boat, the Garth Castle, and I want to see over her.  Captain Smithson, who is bringing her out, has got a box of things for me.  What do you say if we kill two birds with one stone, go and see the vessel and get our luncheon on board.”

“I am at your ladyship’s service,” answered Arthur, lazily, “but would you like to have the compliment apropos of the monkey?  I have thought of something extremely neat now.”

“Not on any account; I hate compliments that are not meant,” and her eyes gave a little flash which put a point to her words.  “Agatha, I suppose that you will come?”