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ful. I was good-looking once. Oh, I loathe growing old. No! don’t say anything more, you’d spoil it.”

Again her voice resumed its normal tone:

“Didn’t your father object to your coming all this way—to the other side of the world?”

“No,” said Ann truthfully. “I was the youngest of the first family, and there’s another small family now—my stepmother’s children—I wasn’t wanted at home.”

“Haven’t you any brothers and sisters of your own?”

“Yes, but they’re much older and they’re married, and have children themselves. They don’t take much interest in me.”

“You’ve been a nursery governess before?”

“Yes, for eighteen months. And I worked as a typist for a year.”

“You’re enterprising.”

Ann laughed.

“Oh, I learned millinery too! I should love to have gone on with that—had a shop of my own. But it’s so hard to start anything like that in London—the competition’s awful. Still, my millinery lessons weren’t wasted. I save quite a lot doing my own hats.”

Mrs. Holmes’s face lit up again.

“Did you trim that hat you wore today when you arrived?”

“I made it.”

“The whole thing?”

Ann nodded.

“Oh, but it was a little lamb! Will you make me some hats?”

“Of course I will.”

“What joy to get something decent to put on one’s