enlighten him much on the subject.

"That is information for which I perceive I am now about to be indebted to
Miss Mordaunt."

"Then you shall not be disappointed, Mr. Bulstrode; Pinkster is neither
more nor less than the Festival of Whit-sunday, or the Feast of Pentecost.
I suppose we shall now hear no more of your saint."

Bulstrode took this little punishment, which was very sweetly but quite
steadily uttered, with perfect good-humour, and with a manner so rebuked
as to prove that Anneke possessed great control over him. He bowed in
submission, and she smiled so kindly, that I wished the occasion for the
little pantomime had not occurred.

"_Our_ ancestors, Miss Mordaunt, never heard of any Pinkster, you will
remember, and that must explain my ignorance," he said meekly.

"But some of _mine_ have long understood it, and observed the festival,"
answered Anneke.

"Ay, on the side of Holland--but when I presume to speak of _our_
ancestors, I mean those which I can claim the honour of boasting as
belonging to me in common with yourself."

"Are you and Mr. Bulstrode, then, related?" I asked, as it might be
involuntarily and almost too abruptly.

Anneke replied, however, in a way to show that she thought the question
natural for the circumstances, and not in the least out of place.