‘Barbie, not quite so noisy, my dear,’ said her mother. She glanced at her celebrated visitor and smiled uncertainly. Her husband and her brother did not stroll about the verandah in exotic dressinggowns but she had begun to formulate a sort of spare code of manners for Gaunt, who, as Dikon had not failed to notice, spoke to her nicely and repeatedly of his mother.

Barbara lifted the lid from her box. Her parents, making uncertain noises, stared at the dress. She took up the envelope. ‘How can it be for me?’ she said, and Dikon saw that she was afraid to open the envelope.

‘Good Lord!’ her father ejaculated. ‘What on earth have you been buying?’

‘I haven’t, Daddy. It’s—’

‘From Auntie Wynne. How kind,’ said Mrs Claire.

‘That’s not Wynne’s writing,’ said the Colonel suddenly.

‘No.’ Barbara opened the envelope and a large card fell on the black surface of the dress. The inscription in green ink had been written across it somewhat flamboyantly and in an extremely feminine script. Barbara read it aloud.

‘If you accept it, then its worth is great.’

‘That’s all,’ said Barbara, and her parents began to look baffled and mulish. Simon appeared and repeated his suggestion that the aunt had sent a cheque to the shop in Auckland.

‘But she’s never been to Auckland,’ said the Colonel crossly. ‘How can a woman living in Poona write cheques to shops she’s never heard of in New Zealand? The thing’s absurd.’

‘I must say,’ said Mrs Claire, ‘that although it’s very kind of dear Wynne, I think it’s always nice not to make mysteries. You must write and thank her just the same, Barbie, of course.’

‘But I repeat, Agnes, that it’s not from Wynne.’

‘How can we tell, dear, when she doesn’t write her name? That’s what I mean when I say we would rather she put in a little note as usual.’

‘It’s not her writing. Green ink and loud flourishes! Ridiculous.’

‘I suppose she wanted to puzzle us.’

Colonel Claire suddenly walked away, looking miserable.

‘Mayn’t we see the dress?’ asked Gaunt.

Barbara drew it from the box and sheets of tissue paper fell from it as she held it up. The three stars shone again in the folds of the skirt. It was a beautifully simple dress.

‘But it’s charming,’ Gaunt said. ‘It couldn’t be better. Do you like it?’

‘Like it?’ Barbara looked at him and her eyes filled with tears. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she said, ‘that I can’t believe it’s true.’

‘There are more things in the box, aren’t there? Shall I hold the dress?’