“I think,” said Lady Mary, and her blue eyes twinkled—­“I think you may be surprised to see little Sarah.  She is grown up now.”

“Of course,” said Peter.  “She’s only a year younger than I am.”

Lady Mary wondered why Peter’s way of saying of course jarred upon her so much.  He had always been brusque and abrupt; it was the family fashion.  Was it because she had grown accustomed to the tactful and gentle methods of John Crewys that it seemed to have become suddenly such an intolerable fashion?  Sir Timothy had quite honestly believed tactfulness to be a form of insincerity.  He did not recognize it as the highest outward expression of self-control.  But Lady Mary, since she had known John Crewys, knew also that it is consideration for the feelings of others which causes the wise man to order his speech carefully.

The canon shook his head when Peter stated that Miss Hewel was his junior by a twelvemonth.

“She might be ten years older,” he said, in awe-struck tones.  “I have always heard that women were extraordinarily adaptable, but I never realized it before.  However, to be sure, she has seen a good deal more of the world than you have.  More than most of us, though in such a comparatively short space of time.  But she is one in a thousand for quickness.”

“Seen more of the world than I have?” said Peter, astonished.  “Why, I’ve been soldiering in South Africa for over two years.”

“I don’t think soldiering brings much worldly wisdom in its train.  I should be rather sorry to think it did,” said Lady Mary, gently.  “But Sarah has been with Lady Tintern all this while.”

“A very worldly woman, indeed, from all I have heard,” said Miss Crewys, severely.

“But a very great lady,” said Lady Mary, “who knows all the famous people, not only in England, but in Europe.  The daughter of a viceroy, and the wife of a man who was not only a peer, and a great landowner, but also a distinguished ambassador.  And she has taken Sarah everywhere, and the child is an acknowledged beauty in London and Paris.  Lady Tintern is delighted with her, and declares she has taken the world by storm.”

“We never thought her a beauty down here,” said Peter, rather contemptuously.

“Perhaps we did not appreciate her sufficiently down here,” said Lady Mary, smiling.

“Why, who is she, after all?” cried Peter.

“A very beautiful and self-possessed young woman, and Lady Tintern’s niece, ‘whom not to know argues yourself unknown,’” said Lady Mary, laughing outright.  “John says people were actually mobbing her picture in the Academy; he could not get near it.”

“I mean,” said Peter, almost sulkily, “that she’s only old Colonel Hewel’s daughter, whom we’ve known all our lives.”

“Perhaps one is in danger of undervaluing people one has known all one’s life,” said Lady Mary, lightly.

Peter muttered something to the effect that he was sorry to hear Sarah had grown up like that; but his words were lost in the tumultuous entry of Dr. Blundell, who pealed the front door bell, and rushed into the hall, almost simultaneously.