“That is no affair of yours.”

“Oh, hoity-toity, how grand we are!  Do you know, Alice, you haven’t got at all nice manners.  You think you have, but you haven’t.  We are never rude like that in Ireland.  We tell a few lies now and then, but they are only polite lies—­the kind that make other people happy.  Alice, I should like to know which is best—­to be horribly cross, or to tell nice polite lies.  Which is the most wicked?  I should like to know.”

“Then I will tell you,” said Alice.  “What you call a nice lie is just a very great and awful sin; and if you don’t believe me, go to church and listen when the commandments are read.”

“In future,” said Kathleen very calmly, “now that I really know your views, I will always tell you home truths.  You can’t blame me, can you?”

Alice deigned no answer.  She went downstairs and let herself out of the house.

“And that is the sort of girl I have exchanged for daddy and the mother and the boys,” thought the Irish girl.  “Oh, dear! oh, dear!”

Kathleen flew downstairs.  It was nearly three o’clock; tea was to be on the table at half-past four.  Quick as thought she dashed into the kitchen.

“Maria,” she said, “and cook, is there anything nice and tasty for tea this evening?”

“Nice and tasty, miss!” said cook.  “And what should there be nice and tasty?  There’s bread, and there’s butter—­Dorset, second-class Dorset—­and there’s jam (if there’s any left); and that’s about all.”

“That sort of tea isn’t very nourishing, cook, is it?  I ask because I want to know,” said Kathleen.

“It’s the kind we always have at Myrtle Lodge,” replied cook.  “I don’t hold with it, but then it’s the way of the missis.”

“I have got some money in my pocket,” said Kathleen.  “I want to have a beautiful, nice tea.  Can’t you think of something to buy?  Here’s five shillings.  Would that get her a nice tea?”

“A nice tea!” cried Maria.  “It would get a beautiful meal; and the poor missis, she would like it.”

“Then go out, Maria; do, like a darling.  I will open the door for you if anybody calls.  Do run round the corner and bring in—­Oh!  I know what.  We’ll have sausages—­they are delicious—­and a little tin of sardines—­won’t they be good?—­and some water-cress, and some shrimps—­oh, yes, shrimps!  Be quick!  And we will put out the best tea-things, and a clean cloth; and it will rest the poor tired one so tremendously when she comes in and sees a good meal on the table.”

Both cook and Maria were quite excited.  Perhaps they had an eye to the reversion of the tea, the sausages, the sardines, the shrimps, and the water-cress.

Maria went out, and Kathleen stood in the hall.  Two or three people arrived during Maria’s absence, and Kathleen went promptly to the door and said, “Not at home, ma’am,” in a determined voice, and with rather a scowling face, to these arrivals.  Some of the visitors left rather important messages, but Kathleen did not remember them for more than a moment after they were delivered.  Maria presently came back and the tea-table was laid.  Kathleen gave Maria sixpence for the washing of an extra cloth, and the well-spread table looked quite fresh and wonderfully like a school-feast.