"Well, all I can say is that I wish the Whites would go and live somewhere else. They've spoiled the place for me."

"One does seem to feel White's influence," said Vicky, with an artistic shiver.

Mary got up, "Don't mix your roles!" she advised. "That one doesn't go with the Sports-Girl outfit."

"Oh, I'd forgotten I was wearing slacks!" said Vicky, quite unoffended. "I think I've had enough of the Sports Girl I'll change."

Mary felt disinclined to enter into Vicky's vagaries at such an early hour of the morning, and, with a rather perfunctory smile, she gathered up her letters, and left the room.

It was part of her self-imposed duty to interview the very competent cook-housekeeper each morning, but before penetrating beyond the baize door to the servants' quarters, she collected a basket and some scissors, and went out into the gardens to cut fresh flowers for the house.

It was an extremely fine morning, and although Palings, as Ermyntrude had said, was best seen in springtime, when its rhododendrons and azaleas were in bloom, neither the sombre foliage of these shrubs, covering the long fall of ground to the stream at its foot, nor the glimpse of Harold White's house upon the opposite slope, detracted, in Mary's eyes, from its beauty. Ermyntrude employed a large staff of gardeners, and besides lawns where few weeds dared show their heads, and acres of kitchen-gardens and glass-houses, there was a sunk Italian garden, a rose-garden, a rock-garden, with a lily-pond in the centre, and broad herbaceous borders in which Ermyntrude's own taste for set-effects had never been allowed to run riot.

Mary reflected, with a wry smile, that Ermyntrude was the best-natured woman imaginable. Even in her own house she allowed herself to be overruled on all matters of taste, and not only did she acquiesce in the decisions made for her, but she quite seriously endeavoured to school her eye to appreciate what she believed to be good taste.