The ladies continued to converse, and Hetty sat forgotten for the moment, eating her cake.  She ate it very slowly, anxious to make it last as long as possible, for she felt that when it was finished she should not know what to do with herself.  When even the crumbs were gone she folded her hands and counted the flowers on the wall-paper, and discovered among them a grinning face which certainly had been no acquaintance of the designer’s, but had started suddenly out of the pattern merely to make cruel fun of Hetty’s uneasiness.

At last, after some time which seemed to the little girl quite a year at least, Mrs. Enderby rang the bell and asked if the young ladies had come in from walking.  The servant said they were just going to tea in the school-room, and Mrs Enderby turned to Hetty, saying: 

“Go, my dear, with Peter, and he will show you the school-room.  Tell Phyllis and Nell that I sent you to play with them.”

Hetty followed the servant; but as she went across the hall and up the staircase she felt with a swelling heart that had she been the real cousin of these children, and not an “upstart” (Grant’s favourite word), they would perhaps have been sent for to the drawing-room to be presented to her.

Accustomed as she was to be alternately petted and snubbed, she had acquired the habit of watching the movements of her elders with suspicion, and now concluded that because no fuss was made about her she must therefore be despised.  A hard proud spirit entered into her on the moment, and she resolved that though she had been humble in her demeanour towards Mrs. Enderby she would hold her head high with girls who were not very much older than herself.

Peter was a young footman who had been brought up in the village and trained by the butler at the Hall, and who consequently knew all about Hetty’s history.  He did not intend to do more than just show the little girl which was the school-room door, and was amused and surprised when the child said to him with great dignity,

“Please announce Miss Gray.”

Peter hid his smile, and throwing open the door very wide he pronounced her name, as she desired, in an unusually loud tone of voice.

Miss Davis, the governess, had just raised the tea-pot in her hand to fill the cups, and her two pupils had each a thick piece of bread and butter in hand, when the door was flung open as described and Hetty in all her magnificence appeared on the threshold.

“My mamma has brought me to see you,” said Hetty boldly, her chin very high, “and Mrs. Enderby sent me here to you”; and she remarked as she spoke that the Enderby girls wore plain holland dresses with little aprons and narrow tuckers, no style or elegance whatever about their attire.

Miss Davis looked in surprise at the young stranger, not knowing her story, and thinking her a very handsome, but haughty looking little girl, while Phyllis and Nell put down their bread and butter on their plates, and rose slowly from their seats.