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surprising
discovery that Franklin Lowell not only owned the picture of herself as a child,
but put a most flatteringly high value on
it.
    "I should like to see it
again, " she said on impulse.
    "What? The picture of yourself?"
    "Yes."
    "Well, you shall. I'll drive you over to my
place one of these days, and you shall see how you looked when you were a little girl."
    "Thank you, " Beverley said. But she
wondered a little uncomfortably if she should have invited that suggestion, and
whether the Waynes were the kind of people who drew a very clear social
distinction between wealthy fiancés and girls who came to the house to do
dressmaking for the family.
    During the rest of the drive they talked of
unimportant things. But he insisted on taking her right to her own front door, and waved away her thanks when
she very earnestly expressed them.
    Beverley was aware, from the odd twitching of the front-room
curtains, that Aunt Ellen was watching the scene, no doubt with intense and
rather disapproving curiosity. But she ni;;'K.gej i^ ..-). .. -. -iposed
goodbye to Franklin Lowell, and even to give him
an impersonal but friendly little wave as he drove away.
    Then she went into the house, and immediately Aunt
Ellen popped out from the front room to demand, "For goodness' sake, who was that in the hand some car?"
    "That was Franklin Lowell,
" said Beverley, taking off her hat and running her fingers through her
hair, while she tried to look as
though it were nothing in her young life to
be driven up to the house by a reputed millionaire. Or near enough.
    "Franklin Lowell?" Aunt Ellen sounded
more scandalized than approving. "But he's engaged to the eldest Wayne
girl, surely. You shouldn't go driving around the country with another girl's fiancé!"
    "Oh, Aunt Ellen, don't be so stuffy, "
said Beverley, thereby causing her aunt to look very much offended. "He
only gave me a lift home because I missed my bus. But come into Mother's room
and hear all about it. I've had the most exciting afternoon!"
    Curiosity getting the better of any huffiness, Aunt Ellen followed Beverley into her mother's
room. And here, over another cup of tea, Beverley gave a lively account of her
first visit to Huntingford Grange.
    She missed out all that Toni had said, of course, and she did not give any of her own impressions of
Sara's curious listlessness or apparent lack of interest in her trousseau. But
she enlarged on the attractive prospects of the actual work, and also on the
friend liness which had been shown her.
    "Darling, how kind Mrs. Wayne sounds, "
exclaimed her mother. "She really need not have kept you to tea like that.
Or, at least, not in her own drawing room."
    "It's always a mistake to start by being too friendly,
" observed Aunt Ellen gloomily.
    "Why?" enquired her sister flatly.
    For a moment Aunt Ellen was nonplussed. Then she
expressed it as her opinion that people who started that way usually ended by
thinking you were presuming on their friendliness.
    "Beverley would never presume on anyone, "
stated Mrs. Farman firmly. "How did you get home, dear?
    You're too early to have come by the bus, surely?"
    Beverley explained about missing the bus and about being
given a lift by Franklin Lowell.
    "And, just imagine, Mother! it was Mr. Lowell
who bought that picture which Geoffrey painted of me when I was fourteen."
    This information so delighted her mother, and even
impressed Aunt Ellen, that Beverley had to explain about this too, in detail.
And at the end her mother said,
    "Fancy Geoffrey never mentioning the fact to
you!"
    "But he probably didn't know of Mr. Lowell as anything but a name until quite recently."
    "He could have told you recently, though, "
put in Aunt Ellen, in a vaguely censorious tone.
    "Oh, I daresay he didn't think of it. Or he
didn't think of my ever having any connection with Mr. Lowell or being
interested. But I think I shall run down a bit later and see if Geoffrey is
in." Carelessly she proposed the one thing she had