“No, thank you.  I couldn’t really.  See how muddy I am,” glancing down at her skirt.  “It must have rained a great deal last night.  Tom and I ran a race, and this is the result.  I must go upstairs and change my things.”

“Certainly, a change would be desirable in many ways,” says old Miss Gower, in her most conscious tone, on which her nephew, who is helping himself to cold pie on the sideboard, turns and looks at her as if he would like to rend her.

“Yes, run away, Tita; I’ll be up with you in a moment,” says Margaret gently, fondly.  “I am afraid you must feel very damp.”

“I feel very uncomfortable, any way,” says Tita, though without arrière pensée.  Mrs. Chichester, dropping her handkerchief, gets her laugh over before she picks it up again.  Tita moves towards the door, and then looks back.  “Maurice,” says she, with a courage born of defiance, “will you send me up some breakfast to my room?”

Sir Maurice turns at once to the butler.

“See that breakfast is sent up to Lady Rylton,” says he calmly.

A faint colour rises to Tita’s forehead.  She goes straight to the door.  Randal Gower, who is still at the sideboard, hurries to open it for her.

“There’s a regular ta-ra-ra waiting for you," says he, “in the near bimeby.”

Tita gives him an indignant glance as she goes by, which that youth accepts with a beaming smile.

Tita has hardly been in her room twenty minutes, has hardly, indeed, had time to change her clothes, when Margaret knocks at the door.

“May I come in?” asks she.

“Oh! come in.  Come in!” cries Tita, who has just dismissed her maid.  She runs to Margaret and kisses her on both cheeks.  “Good-morning,” says she.  And then saucily, “You have come to read me a lecture?”

“No.  No, indeed,” replies Margaret earnestly.  She had perhaps, but the sight of the child’s small, pretty, entreating face has done away with everything condemnatory that was in her mind.  Still, there is such a thing as a word in season.  “But, Tita dearest,” says she, “is it wise, the way you are going on?”

“Ah!  I knew I should not escape,” says Tita whimsically.

“I am not going to scold you, really,” says Margaret, smiling; “but consider, dear child!  To begin with——­”

“Oh, this is worse than I thought,” interrupts Tita, covering her face with her hands, and blinking at her through her fingers.  “Is it going to be firstly, secondly, thirdly?  Come to the thirdly at once.”

“Do you know what you want?” says Margaret, who feels fonder of her every moment.  “A good slap! I shall deliver it some day.  But, seriously now, Tita, you ought to have considered your guests, at all events.  If you had stayed in your room it would have been nothing—­but——­”

“But because I stayed in the open air it was something!” Tita bursts out laughing.  “Oh, isn’t it funny?” says she.  “It would have been all right if I had had a bad headache. Either way they wouldn’t have seen me at breakfast, and what it amounts to is, that they are very angry because I hadn’t a bad headache.”