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proached her aunt.
‘Do you think papa would object to my making the tea?’
The Countess looked at her with a deliberately critical
gaze and without answering her question.
‘My poor niece,’ she said, ‘is that your best frock?’
‘Ah no,’ Pansy answered, ‘it’s just a little toilette for com-
mon occasions.’
‘Do you call it a common occasion when I come to see
you?—to say nothing of Madame Merle and the pretty lady
yonder.’
Pansy reflected a moment, turning gravely from one of
the persons mentioned to the other. Then her face broke
into its perfect smile. ‘I have a pretty dress, but even that
one’s very simple. Why should I expose it beside your beau-
tiful things?’
‘Because it’s the prettiest you have; for me you must al-
ways wear the prettiest. Please put it on the next time. It
seems to me they don’t dress you so well as they might.’
The child sparingly stroked down her antiquated skirt.
‘It’s a good little dress to make tea—don’t you think? Don’t
you believe papa would allow me?’
‘Impossible for me to say, my child,’ said the Countess.
‘For me, your father’s ideas are unfathomable. Madame
Merle understands them better. Ask her.’
Madame Merle smiled with her usual grace. ‘It’s a
weighty question—let me think. It seems to me it would
please your father to see a careful little daughter making his
tea. It’s the proper duty of the daughter of the house—when
she grows up.’

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