I asked her to come in early this
morning so as to act as your guide round the place."
The boy and girl shook hands with each other. She was the first to
speak.
"So you are Ralph. I have been wondering what you would be like. Uncle
has been telling me you were coming. I like your looks, and I think
you are nice."
Ralph was taken rather aback. This was not the way in which his
schoolfellows' sisters had generally addressed him.
"I think you look jolly," he said; "and that's better than looking
nice."
"I think they mean the same thing," she replied; "except that a girl
says 'nice' and a boy says 'jolly.' I like the word 'jolly' best, only
I get scolded when I use it. Shall we go into the garden?"
Altogether Ralph Conway had a very much pleasanter time than he had
anticipated. Except at meals he saw little of the Miss Penfolds. His
opinion as to these ladies, expressed confidentially to Mabel Withers,
was the reverse of flattering.
"I think," he said, "that they are the two most disagreeable old cats
I have ever met. They hardly ever open their lips, and when they do it
is only to answer some question of their brother. I remember in a
fairy story there was a girl who whenever she spoke let fall pearls
and diamonds from her lips; whenever those women open their mouths I
expect icicles and daggers to drop out.
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