It was a day of great excitement, and Audrey Wynford stood by her schoolroom window and looked out. She was a tall girl of sixteen, with her hair hanging in a long, fair plait down her back. She stood with her hands folded behind her and an expectant expression on her face. Up the avenue a stream of people were coming. Some came in cabs, some on bicycles; some walked. They all turned in the direction of the front entrance, and Audrey heard their voices rising and falling as they entered the house, walked down the hall, and disappeared into some region at the other end. “It is all detestable,” she muttered; “and just when Evelyn is coming, too. How strange she will think it! I wish father would drop this horrid custom. I do not approve of it at all.” Just then her governess, a bright-looking girl about six years Audrey's senior, came into the room. “Well,” she cried, “and what are you doing here? I thought you were going to ride this afternoon.” “How can I?” said Audrey, shrugging her shoulders. “I shall be met at every turn.” “And why not?” said Miss Sinclair. “You are not ashamed of being seen.” “It is quite detestable,” said Audrey. She crossed the room, flung herself into a deep straw armchair in front of a blazing log fire, and took up a magazine. “It is all horrid,” she continued as she rapidly turned the pages; “you know it, Miss Sinclair, as well as I do.” “If I were you,” said Miss Sinclair, “I should be proud—very proud—to belong to an old family who had kept a custom like this in vogue.”