"Well, if you want to know what I think, Alan's very lucky these days to have got a job at all," said Ermyntrude roundly.

"Lawyers are dusty," murmured Vicky.

"It's a very respectable calling, and if you take my advice you'll tell Alan to stop talking a lot of nonsense, and get down to his work."

"Yes, but I shouldn't like to be articled to a solicitor myself, so probably I won't," replied Vicky with one of her pensive looks.

"That is the young man who came last night?" inquired the Prince. "Such a very earnest young man! Do you like him so much, Vicky? For me, a little dull."

"Oh no! he writes poetry," said Vicky seriously. "Not the rhyming sort, either. Can I have a picnic basket, Mummy?"

"But, dearie, aren't you going to join the shooting lunch?" said Ermyntrude, quite distressed. "Mary and I are going.

"No, I think definitely not," replied Vicky. "I thought I'd like to shoot, and now I've decided that after all I feel frightfully unhearty, besides rather loathing game-pie and steak-and-kidney pudding."

"But, Vicky, this is cruel!" protested the Prince. "You desert us for a poet!"

"Yes, but I hope you have a lovely time, and lots of sport," she said kindly.

When Wally presently departed with his guest, Ermyntrude could not forbear to utter a few words of warning to her daughter. It seemed to her anxious eyes that Vicky was treating Alan White with quite unnecessary tolerance. "You don't want to go putting ideas into his head," she said. "Not but what I've no doubt they're there already, but what I mean is there's no need for you to encourage him."

"I think you're awfully right," agreed Vicky, wrinkling her brow. "Because, for one thing, I haven't made up my mind yet whether I'm the managing sort or the only-alittle-woman sort."