"Why not?" asked some one. Lynn merely laughed and looked at the first speaker with covert yet kindly mirth.
"I don't see why you laugh," said Agatha, with soft stubbornness.
"Why, you see, Agatha," said Lynn, looking at her thoughtfully, "this Mrs. Howden liked me till she found I was a teacher. Then she couldn't endure my society till it transpired that I was related to an earl. Then she loved me once more."
"And why shouldn't she?" asked Agatha, lifting her lovely lashes. "Earls are not so common."
"Not so common as snobs, no. Still having an earl for a cousin is no reason why people should like one."
"But you see, Lynn, it is a reason. You say, yourself, that she liked you as soon as she found it out."
Lynn abandoned argument.
"She liked me in the first place, too," she said, laughing.
"Oh, but then she didn't know you were a teacher," Agatha explained, very sensibly.
"She liked me until I was found out, in other words."