While I was pondering over these things, the door opened and my niece Hyacinth came in.

“Hullo!” she said; “mum’s out.”

“So I hear,” I said; “won’t you kiss me?”

“Oh!  I forgot,” she said, twirling round on one leg and holding out a cheek to be kissed.  “There’s going to be a party to it.”

“So I see, I said; “what sort of a party?”

“Oh! it’s the end-up of the dancing class, four to seven; that’s why mum asked you to come early.”

“She isn’t in yet?” I asked innocently.

“Oh! she’s not coming,” said Hyacinth, raising her eyebrows and laughing; “she always has something to do on dancing days.  The Frauleins get on her nerves.  They sit all round the room.”

And Hyacinth indicated the position of the Frauleins with a sweep of her arm.

“What time is it now?” I asked.

“Half past three,” she said; “I’m ready.”

“I’m not,” I said savagely.

I went upstairs, vowing vengeance on Zerlina.  I could have shaken Hyacinth, poor child, and why?  Because her legs were too long, or her skirts too short, or the bow in her hair too large?  What a disagreeable, cross-grained professional aunt I was!  Or did I miss the hug Hyacinth might have given me?

I was only just ready when the children began to arrive.  I flew downstairs and found not only children in every shape and form, but mothers in big hats and trailing skirts, and Frauleins in small hats and skirts curtailed, mademoiselles and nannies.  The nannies I handed over to the nursery department, and the mothers and the Frauleins and the mademoiselles I arranged in a dado round the room., making inappropriate remarks to each in turn.  No surprise was expressed at the absence of Zerlina.

The children began to dance.  There was a particularly painstaking little boy in a white silk shirt and black velvet knickerbockers, very tight in places, who danced assiduously, looking neither to the right nor to the left.  “Right leg, To-mus, left leg, To-mus!” came in stentorian tones from a Fraulein in the corner, who suited her actions to her words by the uplifting of the leg corresponding to that recommended to Tomus’s consideration, and bringing it down with emphasis on the parquet floor.

By the sudden quickening of leg-action on the part of my painstaking friend, I knew him to be Tomus, and by that only, so many of the boys looked as if they might be Tomus.  The real Tomus asserted himself manfully, however, by using the exactly opposite leg to that ordered by Fraulein.  I liked this spirit of independence, and determined to make friends with him so soon as that dance should be over.  I took the liberty of introducing myself; he made no remark but took me by the hand and led me out on to the landing, and there he found two chairs in the orthodox position.  Into one of these he wriggled himself by a backward and upward movement, and I sat