The girl was able to reply, with a touch of careless hauteur in her voice: "Relatives! We have none--none whom we specially cultivate, that is.

I will stop in town a day or two to interview my dressmaker, and then go straight to Helmdale, our place in Yorkshire." "Surely you have a chaperon!" "A chaperon! My dear Lady Tozer, did my father impress you as one who would permit a fussy and stout old person to make my life miserable ?" The acidity of the retort lay in the word "stout." But Iris was not accustomed to cross-examination.

During a three months' residence on the island she had learnt how to avoid Lady Tozer.

Here it was impossible, and the older woman fastened upon her asp-like.

Miss Iris Deane was a toothsome morsel for gossip.