“Unless something happens, something to save us by staving off things, we shall have to go to Castle Clare at once.  It will be all over.  No girl could be presented with such a thing in the air.  They don’t like it.”

“They,” of course, meant persons whose opinions made London’s society’s law.

“To go to Castle Clare,” faltered Agatha, “will be like being sentenced to starve to death.  Alix and Hilda and Millicent and Eve and I will be starved, quite slowly, for the want of the things that make girls’ lives bearable when they have been born in a certain class.  And even if the most splendid thing happened in three or four years, it would be too late for us four—­almost too late for Eve.  If you are out of London, of course you are forgotten.  People can’t help forgetting.  Why shouldn’t they, when there are such crowds of new girls every year?”

Emily Fox-Seton was sweet.  She was quite sure that they would not be obliged to go to Castle Clare.  Without being indelicate, she was really able to bring hope to the fore.  She said a good deal of the black gauze dress and the lovely effect of the silver butterflies.

“I suppose it was the butterflies which made Lord Walderhurst say ‘Psyche!  Psyche!’ when he first saw you,” she added, en passant.

“Did he say that?” And immediately Lady Agatha looked as if she had not intended to say the words.

“Yes,” answered Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good deal of tact in it.  “And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aerial.  You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away.  But you must go to sleep now.”

Lady Agatha went with her to the door of the room to bid her good-night.  Her eyes looked like those of a child who might presently cry a little.  “Oh, Miss Fox-Seton,” she said, in a very young voice, “you are so kind!”

Chapter Four

The parts of the park nearest to the house already presented a busy aspect when Miss Fox-Seton passed through the gardens the following morning.  Tables were being put up, and baskets of bread and cake and groceries were being carried into the tent where the tea was to be prepared.  The workers looked interested and good-humoured; the men touched their hats as Emily appeared, and the women courtesied smilingly.  They had all discovered that she was amiable and to be relied on in her capacity of her ladyship’s representative.

“She’s a worker, that Miss Fox-Seton,” one said to the other.  “I never seen one that was a lady fall to as she does.  Ladies, even when they means well, has a way of standing about and telling you to do things without seeming to know quite how they ought to be done.  She’s coming to help with the bread-and-butter-cutting herself this morning, and she put up all them packages of sweets yesterday with her own hands.  She did ’em up in different-coloured papers, and tied ’em with bits of ribbon, because she said she knowed children was prouder of coloured things than plain—­they was like that.  And so they are:  a bit of red or blue goes a long way with a child.”