CHAPTER VIII

TO BALMORAL

"ENOUGH news for this afternoon, I think," said Mr. Smith. "The hour is approaching when Miss Smith, after her afternoon sleep, Receives. I will go up to Balmoral now and see if I can secure an audience for you. She will, I know, be profoundly interested in the news of your arrival. My mother, of course, unlike the rest of us, lived to maturity in Great Britain before she came here, and recollects it perfectly."

"Miss Smith ain't the only one to do that." The quavering voice of the little old Jewess spoke. "I recollect London perfectly. The Mile End Road, we called it, where we lived. Eight years old, I was, when they took me to the Orphanage, and I recollect it as if it was yesterday. Going shopping for my muvver-stalls with red meat all along the street on market nights, all lit up. . . It might be yesterday. And I recollect the shipwreck, and poor Anne-Marie that was drowned, and the doctor that the shark ate up the day I was married to Jacob. How the doctor made us laugh and drink and dance, and taught us bits of Latin in his cups, and (when he'd had one more) about the pope... and how Miss Smith wouldn't have it. .

Mr. Smith lifted his hand for silence, not caring for these old-time recollections of his parents.

"That is enough, Leah. Enough." He turned to the visitors. "If you will accompany me to Miss

Smith's residence, I will inquire whether she can receive you forthwith."

They climbed up from the beach again, followed by inquisitive crowds, among whom were many welldressed women. Two of these walked close at Rosamond's side, inspecting her with interest, fingering her white cotton frock.

"She wears a lot of clothes," said one to the other. "She has something under this. She must be very hot. She wears clothes even on her legs and feet. Why do you wear clothes on your legs and feet, Rosamond?" (for so they had heard her called).

"I don't know," said Rosamond. "People do, where I come from. It's stupid."

"Is it very cold, where you come from?" "Very, very cold. Nearly always."

"But it isn't cold here. Here you needn't wear so many clothes."

"I shan't," said Rosamond.

"Why do you wear your hair short instead of parted and coiled over your ears? It's not been the fashion here for-oh, ever so many years. Only elderly ladies do it."

"I always have. It's common, in England."

"She is very white," they said. "Not brown or red, like us. But her face is pink-she has freckles on her nose. Why are you so white, Rosamond?"

"I suppose because the sun doesn't shine much where I have lived."

"Why don't the sun shine?"

"I don't know. You'd better ask William. He does science. . . . I mean, he knows about things like that." "William? That's the broad, young one, who stops and looks for things on the ground. He's not so white as you; and he has more freckles. Charles is

white-whiter than you. We think Charles is vastly handsome."

"Perhaps," said Rosamond indifferently.

"And Paul is handsome too. Merton not so much; we think he perhaps drinks a prodigious lot of fermented juice. Are they married, Merton and Paul and Charles and William? Are you married?"

"Not Charles and William and me. I don't know about Mr. Merton and Captain Paul. I dare say they are."

"Are you Smith?"

"Smith?"

"Yes. Have you a Smith descent? Are you upper class? We are Smith. In the female line. Our name is Macbean. Miss Smith is our great-grandmamma." "Well, we are not descended from Miss Smith. Of course not."

"No, of course not. But you must be Smith-upper class-in your own country? We can see you're not Orphan."

"I don't think we are specially upper class. Just ordinary, I suppose."

"Aren't you rich, then?" "Oh, yes, we are rich.'

The Macbean young ladies did not know how un usual an answer, how unusual a belief, this was. Rosa mond knew that University dons have more money than the majority of human beings.

"What does your papa do?"

"He gives lectures. He sets examination papers. Ho writes books. He reads, and finds things out."

"Oh, a teacher. They are not Smith, usually." Their opinion of Rosamond's social position seemed to fall a little. Its fall gave them a new frankness about

their own. The younger dropped her voice, and

blushed.

"We are Smith, as we said.

But our mamma did not get married to our papa, so Miss Smith cast her out, and we aren't accepted in good society. We count as Orphan."

The elder Miss Macbean, scarlet cheeked, nudged the younger angrily. "Hush, Marah. Talking like that! Mamma will whip you if I tell her. What will Rosamond think of us? We've no business to know about things of that kind, you know we haven't. I'm sure Rosamond don't. Young ladies in England don't ever. Do they, Rosamond?”

"Things of that kind?"

"Oh, acting as if you were married when you are not ... all that."

"Oh, yes," said Rosamond, surprised. "Of course we know about that. Why not?"

"But you don't speak of it in England, do you? Not young ladies?"

"Why yes, I suppose so. We speak of anything we like. anything we do."

Two pairs of round, prominent blue eyes gazed at her, shocked. Decidedly, Rosamond could not be Smith in her own country. She had none of the Smith outlook, but a more than Orphan commonness.

"Well," said the elder Miss Macbean firmly, "we don't."

Between them seventy years seemed to yawn, and neither understood.

"I wonder what great-grandmamma will think of you," said the younger girl. "She is very particular indeed. She won't even see us, because of-you know. She made the Reverend christen us Shameless and Marah. Marah means not nice, you know. And it

was all her fault, because she wouldn't let the Reverend marry papa and mamma.”

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Well, you see, mamma was Smith, and papa was very low born. Papa's work is to spear fish and sell them. That is not Smith. So mamma mightn't marry him, and so she and papa did without." The four round, shocked eyes were turned again on Rosamond's face, to see if she was not shocked too.

At this point Mr. Smith, who was walking ahead with the other gentlemen, turned about and looked at Rosamond and her companions. Wrath clouded his fine, high brow. He struck his hands twice together.

"Clear off, you girls. Don't let me find you annoying that young lady again, or I will have you well beaten. Off, I say!"

The Miss Macbeans scuttled away. Charles laughed.

"Autocracy in working," he observed.

"I am sorry you have been troubled," said Mr. Smith kindly, like a telephone operator, to Rosamond. "I am afraid we have a good number of undesirable characters here, who will pester you if they get the chance. Those girls are not quite the type with which your papa would desire you to associate."

Mr. Thinkwell gave his spasmodic grin. "Nothing to do with me," he said. "Parental surveillance went out, you know, long before the twentieth century came in. Rosamond chooses her own friends, as I choose mine."

"Odd!" commented Mr. Smith, looking at him curiously. "Are you not afraid that she may get-erundesirably entangled?"

"Entangled, sir? I presume she is entangled. We all are. Life is entangled. Who is to help that?"