Sarah Cockburn was the most amazing girl in the world; all the more so because her mother was so quiet and ordinary. Sarah wore flaming jumpers and tweed skirts which showed a large expanse of check stocking. She smoked innumerable cigarettes, elegantly referred to by herself as gaspers, and swept her hair severely back from her forehead. She was a newcomer to the neighbourhood, and Miss Arden took Elizabeth to call on her mother. Elizabeth wore white kid gloves and sat on the edge of the chair, being seen but not heard, and Mrs. Cockburn, in a satin tea-frock, dispensed tea and talked to Aunt Anne about domestic worries, and the difficulty of finding a house.

In the middle of the tea-party Sarah came striding into the room in brogue shoes and the woollen jumper and striped skirt of golf enthusiasts. She did not murmur any apologies for her unpunctuality, but went straight to Aunt Anne and shook hands.

“How d’you do?” she said, and went on to Elizabeth. “B’lieve I saw you in the Brompton Road the other day. I say, you’ve got nothing to eat!”

Neither Elizabeth nor her aunt knew who Sarah was; Miss Arden looked at her as though she were an escaped lunatic.

“My daughter Sarah,” Mrs. Cockburn explained. “Darling, this is Miss Arden, and Miss Elizabeth Arden.”

Sarah offered Elizabeth a plate of cakes.

“I don’t recommend the pink ones. They usually taste of sawdust,” she said frankly, then sat down on a footstool beside the fire and put her cup and saucer on the floor.

“I had no idea you had a daughter.” Miss Arden said, and looked inquiringly at Sarah. “I don’t think you were at church on Sunday, were you!”

“No, I never go to church,” Sarah answered, with a disarming smile. “It bores me horribly, and I come away in a most unholy frame of mind.”

Elizabeth stared round-eyed. Within less than five minutes this extraordinary girl had committed every breach of social etiquette possible, and now she said that church bored her. She cast a surreptitious glance at Aunt Anne, and saw that her face had assumed the wooden expression it always wore when something had displeased her.

“You’ve lived here ages, haven’t you!” Sarah said, addressing Elizabeth. “What’s it like!”

Elizabeth had always been told that the Boltons was the most attractive quarter of London, so central and yet so quiet.

“Oh, it’s very nice,” she answered. “So convenient, and such a little backwater.”

Sarah grimaced.

“Are there any cheery people living here!—or is it frightfully conventional! At first glance it looks rather suburban—the sort of place where people never come to see you unless they’re asked.”

It was that sort of place, but never before had Elizabeth heard it spoken of in a disparaging way.

“I think—people—are quite good about calling,” she said timidly.

Sarah cast her a quick glance, then laughed.