A RETIRED BISHOP of the South African Missions was coming for tea, and Mrs. Bagot and her two little girls were very busy getting ready for him. He was coming at four. The children weren’t home from school until after three o’clock, and Mrs. Bagot had to get them to eat the sketchy dinner she had waiting for them, and then they had to get out of their school clothes and into their good dresses. Then she had to brush their hair and put on their new hair ribbons — wide ribbons of pale blue satin. She dressed them alike, as though they were twins, although there was nearly three years between them. Lily was going on ten, and Margaret was seven. She had told them they were all going to hear great stories of Africa — strange tales of ostrich feathers, and monkeys, and cannibals, and big wild birds, and lions, and a sun so hot that people ran to get out of it.

“Is there no rain there, Mother?” Lily asked, and then she said, “When I’m a bit bigger I’ll be able to look into your mirror while you brush my hair.”

She was standing by the chest of drawers, which held a small standing mirror with the brushes and combs and ribbons arranged in front of it.

“When you’re a bit bigger you’ll brush your own hair,” Margaret said quickly.

Margaret was sitting on the edge of her mother’s big bed, waiting her turn. She was getting impatient. The Bishop would be here any minute. Lily and Mrs. Bagot were both silent after she spoke. Mrs. Bagot was silent because she was anxiously tying Lily’s hair into the new ribbon, and trying to get it balanced so that each loop of the bow would be exactly the same size and would sit at exactly the same angle. And Lily was silent because she was always surprised when Margaret said anything that showed a capacity for thought. Margaret’s words usually expressed desire, or protest, or affection. And Lily had another reason for silence. She could feel her mother’s fingers struggling with the bow, and she knew that her whole appearance depended on the next minute or so, because if the bow went wrong the first time it would have to be untied and taken off, and the ribbon would be wrinkled, and there was no time to run the iron over it, and the chances of it going right the second time would be small. One word from her now might cause her mother’s hand to slip, and so she was silent and tried to hold her breath.