Miss Teenie nearly always followed the lead of her elder sister, so she meekly went off to look out and air her most self-respecting under garments, though she protested, “Not half aired they’ll be, and as likely as not I’ll catch my death,” and added bitterly, “It’s not all pleasure knowing the aristocracy.”

They were ready to the last glove-button half an hour before the time appointed, and sat stiffly on two high chairs in their little dining-room.  “I think,” said Miss Watson, “we’d be as well to think on some subjects to talk on.  We must try to choose something that’ll interest Miss Reston.  I wish I knew more about the Upper Ten.”

“I’d better not speak at all,” said Miss Teenie, who by this time was in a very bad temper.  “I never could mind the names of the Royal Family, let alone the aristocracy.  I always thought there was a weakness about the people who liked to read in the papers and talk about those kind of folk.  I’m sure when I do read about them they’re always doing something kind of indecent, like getting divorced.  It seems to me they never even make an attempt to be respectable.”

She looked round the cosy room and thought how pleasant it would have been if she and her sister had been sitting down to tea as usual, with no need to think of topics.  It had been all very well to tell their obviously surprised friends where they were going for tea, but when it came to the point she would infinitely have preferred to stay at home.

“She’ll not likely have any notion of a proper tea,” Miss Watson said.  “Scraps of thin bread and butter, mebbe, and a cake, so don’t you look disappointed Teenie, though I know you like your tea.  Just toy with it, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” said Miss Teenie crossly.  “I never ‘toyed’ with my tea yet, and I’m not going to begin.  It’ll likely be China tea anyway, and I’d as soon drink dish-water.”

Miss Watson looked bitterly at her sister.

“You’ll never rise in the world, Teenie, if you can’t give up a little comfort for the sake of refinement Fancy making a fuss about China tea when it’s handed to you by an earl’s granddaughter.”

Miss Teenie made no reply to this except to burst—­as was a habit of hers—­into a series of violent sneezes, at which her sister’s wrath broke out.

“That’s the most uncivilised sneeze I ever heard.  If you do that before Miss Reston, Teenie, I’ll be tempted to do you an injury.”

Miss Teenie blew her nose pensively.  “I doubt I’ve got a chill changing my underclothes in the middle of the day, but ’a little pride and a little pain,’ as my mother used to say when she screwed my hair with curl-papers....  I suppose it’ll do if we stay an hour?”

Things are rarely as bad as we anticipate, and, as it turned out, not only Miss Watson, but the rebellious Miss Teenie, looked back on that tea-party as one of the pleasantest they had ever taken part in, and only Heaven knows how many tea-parties the good ladies had attended in their day.