She folded her arms in front of her, her little chin fell forward on her white wrappings, and she stared rather sombrely into vacancy.

“What’s wrong with him?” said Annette after a pause—­adopting a tone in which she might have discussed a new hat.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Connie dreamily.

She was thinking of Falloden’s sudden departure from Oxford, after his own proposal of two more rides.  His note, “crying off” till after the schools, had seemed to her not quite as regretful as it might have been; his epistolary style lacked charm.  And it was impertinent of him to suggest Lord Meyrick as a substitute.  She had given the Lathom Woods a wide berth ever since her first adventure there; and she hoped that Lord Meyrick had spent some disappointed hours in those mossy rides.

All the same it looked as though she were going to see a good deal of Douglas Falloden.  She raised her eyes suddenly.

“Annette, I didn’t tell you I’d heard from two of my aunts to-day!”

“You did!” Annette dropped her knitting of her own accord this time, and sat open-mouthed.

“Two long letters.  Funny, isn’t it?  Well, Aunt Langmoor wants me to go to her directly—­in time anyway for a ball at Tamworth House—­horribly smart—­Prince and Princess coming—­everybody begging for tickets.  She’s actually got an invitation for me—­I suppose by asking for it!—­rather calm of her.  She calls me ‘Dearest Connie.’  And I never saw her!  But papa used to be fond of her, and she was never rude to mamma.  What shall I say?”

“Well, I think you’d much better go,” said Annette decidedly.  “You’ve never worn that dress you got at Nice, and it’ll be a dish-cloth if you keep it much longer.  The way we have to crush things in this place!”

And she looked angrily even at the capacious new wardrobe which took up one whole side of the room.

“All right!” laughed Constance.  “Then I’ll accept Aunt Langmoor, because you can’t find any room for my best frock.  It’s a toss up.  That settles it.  Well, but now for Aunt Marcia—­”

She drew a letter from the pages of her French book, and opened it.

* * * * *

“My dear Constance”—­so it ran—­“I should like to make your acquaintance, and I hear that you are at Oxford with your uncle.  I would come and see you but that I never leave home.  Oxford, too, depresses me dreadfully.  Why should people learn such a lot of useless things?  We are being ruined by all this education.  However, what I meant to say was that Winifred and I would be glad to see you here if you care to come.  Winifred, by the way, is quite aware that she behaved like a fool twenty-two years ago.  But as you weren’t born then, we suggest it shouldn’t matter.  We have all done foolish things.  I, for instance, invented a dress—­a kind of bloomer thing—­only it wasn’t a bloomer.  I took a shop for it in Bond Street, and it nearly ruined me.  But I muddled through—­that’s