Mrs. Hooper declared she must have a new dress, if these invitations were to be accepted.

“I don’t want anything extravagant,” she said fretfully.  “But really it’s too bad of Nora to say that I could have my old blue one done up.  She never seems to care how her mother looks.  If all this fuss is going to be made about Constance and I am to take her out, I must be decent!”

The small underhung mouth shut obstinately.  These musts of her mother’s and Alice’s were Nora’s terror.  They always meant a new bill.

Alice said—­“Of course!  And especially when Constance dresses so extravagantly!” she added bitterly.  “One can’t look like her scullery-maid!”

Mrs. Hooper sighed.  She glanced round her to see that the door was shut.

“That silly child, Nora, had quite a scene with Connie this morning, because Connie offered to give her that pretty white dress in Brandon’s window.  She told me Connie had insulted her.  Such nonsense!  Why shouldn’t Connie give her a dress—­and you too?  She has more money than she knows how to spend.”

Alice did not reply.  She, too, wanted new dresses; she could hardly endure the grace and costliness of Connie’s garments, when she compared them with her own; but there was something in her sad little soul also that would not let her be beholden to Connie.  Not without a struggle, anyway.

“I don’t want Connie to give me things either,” she said sulkily.  “She’s never been the least nice to me.  She makes a pet of Nora, and the rest of us might be doormats for all the notice she takes of us.”

“Well, I don’t know—­she’s quite civil,” said Mrs. Hooper reflectively.  She added, after a minute—­“It’s extraordinary how the servants will do anything for her!”

“Why, of course, she tips them!” cried Alice, indignantly.  Mrs. Hooper shrugged her shoulders.  It was quite indifferent to her whether Connie tipped them or not, so long as she gained by the result.  And there was no denying the fact that the house had never gone so smoothly as since Connie’s arrival.  At the same time her conscience reminded her that there was probably something else than “tipping” in the matter.  For instance—­both Constance and Annette were now intimately acquainted with each of Mrs. Hooper’s three maids, and all their family histories; whereas Mrs. Hooper always found it impossible to remember their surnames.  A few days before this date, Susan the housemaid had received a telegram telling her of the sudden death of a brother in South Africa.  In Mrs. Hooper’s view it was providential that the death had occurred in South Africa, as there could be no inconvenient question of going to the funeral.  But Connie had pleaded that the girl might go home for two days to see her mother; Annette had done the housework during her absence; and both maid and mistress had since been eagerly interested in the girl’s mourning, which had been largely supplied out of Connie’s wardrobe.  Naturally the opinion of the kitchen was that “her ladyship is sweet!”