On landing
I observed a strange gentleman coming up the path. He looked at my
torn gingham frock, naked legs, tennis shoes and dishevelled curls
under an orange turban; and I stood still and gazed at him.
"This is a wonderful place," he said; to which I replied:
"You like it?"
HE: "I would like to see the house. I hear there are beautiful
things in it."
MARGOT: "I think the drawing-rooms are all shut up."
HE: "How do you know? Surely you could manage to get hold of a
servant or some one who would take me round. Do you know any of
them?"
I asked him if he meant the family or the servants.
"The family," he said.
MARGOT: "I know them very well, but I don't know you."
"I am an artist," said the stranger; "my name is Peter Graham. Who
are you?"
"I am an artist too!" I said. "My name is Margot Tennant. I
suppose you thought I was the gardener's daughter, did you?"
He gave a circulating smile, finishing on my turban, and said:
"To tell you the honest truth, I had no idea what you were!"
My earliest sorrow was when I was stealing peaches in the
conservatory and my little dog was caught in a trap set for rats.
He was badly hurt before I could squeeze under the glass slides to
save him. I was betrayed by my screams for help and caught in the
peach-house by the gardener. I was punished and put to bed, as the
large peaches were to have been shown in Edinburgh and I had eaten
five.
We had a dancing-class at the minister's and an arithmetic-class
in our schoolroom.
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