Besides, in the country the visitors wouldn’t so easily find out that the family hadn’t got “into” things—­the things that mattered.  Of course they could see what the family was.  They could see that anywhere, alas!  But poor father and mother were better against a country background.  And foreigners might attribute some quaint tricks of manner and speech to their being Americans, just as she and Peter hadn’t known how awful the cockney accent was until they had been told by English people.

Oh, it was lovely over there!  Nobody snubbed her.  She would give anything to live on that side all her life, married to a man of title, and go home occasionally, to pay back the proud cats who had scratched.  Meanwhile, it would be a step on the golden ladder to flaunt Lord Raygan and his mother and Eileen as guests.  Then, if Rags could swallow the family and propose (as sometimes she thought he contemplated doing), how wonderful it would be!  Her ideal accomplished!

No golliwog on earth should be allowed to defeat this end.  For the addition of a model, dressmaking golliwog to the family would be the final obstacle.  Lord Raygan was now undecided.  He was perhaps waiting to see how the rest of the Rollses shaped up.  If he could stand them as relations, all would be well.  All must be well!

That night Win wore for her walk a long blue coat in place of the mackintosh.  It was shabby, but becoming; and her dark hair was tucked into a close-fitting cap of the same blue as the cloak.  She knew what was due to happen at half-past eight, and though grateful to Mr. Balm of Gilead, dreaded the result of his kindness.

Miss Rolls would be the first American girl she had ever met; but she knew how an English girl would feel about being introduced to a vague waif picked up by a brother in a dressmaker’s showroom on shipboard.  It would have been ungracious to refuse the offered introduction so well meant, but the fifth dryad was not looking forward to it with pleasurable sensations.

When she saw the brother and sister coming toward her, however, the smile on Miss Rolls’s face was encouraging.  It was dimly like Peter’s smile, and there was a certain family resemblance about the faces:  both dark, with eager eyes that seemed light in contrast with dead-black hair, but the eagerness of Miss Rolls’s look was different from the eagerness of her brother’s.  His was slightly wistful in its search for something he did not yet know.  Hers was dissatisfied, searching for something she wanted and had not got.

He was a lean young man, not very tall, but with rather the air of an ex-college athlete.  She was a plump, short girl, somewhat square in build, but distinctly handsome, showing beautiful teeth in her cordial smile.  If the smile had been less cordial Miss Child might have conceived the catty idea that the magnificent ruby-velvet hooded evening cloak had been put on to impress the humble new acquaintance.  However, it would have been mean to suspect a sister of Mr. Balm of Gilead of such a snobbish trick.  And there was the smile.