"Nor you have, ducky. That's one way you don't take after me!"
Vicky smiled abstractedly, and began to read her letters, while her mother sat surveying her with fond admiration.
She was indeed a very pretty girl, with pale corncoloured hair, which she wore rather long, and curled into a thick bush of ringlets at the base of her neck; and large blue eyes that gazed innocently forth from between darkened lashes. Even the ruthless plucking of' her eyebrows, and the pencilling of improbable arches perceptibly higher than the shadows of the original brows, failed to ruin her beauty. Her complexion varied in accordance with her mood, or her costume, but she had no need of powder to whiten a naturally fair skin.
"I suppose you know about this prince coming to stay?" said Wally, in a grumbling tone. "What your mother wants with him I don't know, though I dare say you're as bad as she is, and think there's something fine about having a prince in the house."
"Oh, I think it's lovely!" Vicky said.
This artless response disgusted Wally so much that he relapsed into silence.
Ermyntrude had slit open another letter, and suddenly exclaimed "Ah!" in an exultant tone. A triumphant smile curled her lips. "There's nothing like a prince!" she said simply. "The Derings have accepted!"
Even Wally seemed pleased by this announcement, but he said, with a glance in Mary's direction, that he didn't think the Prince had anything to do with it. "I wouldn't mind betting young Bering's home," he said.
Mary coloured, but replied calmly: "I told you he was, yesterday."
Vicky emerged from the clouds of some apparently beatific dream to inquire: "Who is he?"