feeling that she ought to be offended.
Mr Rubb, junior, was a tradesman who had come to her on business, and
having done his business, why did he not go away? Nevertheless, Miss
Mackenzie answered him when he asked questions, and allowed herself
to be seduced into a conversation.

"Yes, upon my honour," he said, looking out of the window into the
Montpelier Gardens, "a very nice situation indeed. How much better
they do these things in such a place as this than we do up in London!
What dingy houses we live in, and how bright they make the places
here!"

"They are not crowded so much, I suppose," said Miss Mackenzie.

"It isn't only that. The truth is, that in London nobody cares what
his house looks like. The whole thing is so ugly that anything not
ugly would be out of place. Now, in Paris--you have been in Paris,
Miss Mackenzie?"

In answer to this, Miss Mackenzie was compelled to own that she had
never been in Paris.

"Ah, you should go to Paris, Miss Mackenzie; you should, indeed. Now,
you're a lady that have nothing to prevent your going anywhere. If I
were you, I'd go almost everywhere; but above all, I'd go to Paris.
There's no place like Paris."

"I suppose not," said Miss Mackenzie.

By this time Mr Rubb had returned from the window, and had seated
himself in the easy chair in the middle of the room. In doing so he
thrust out both his legs, folded his hands one over the other, and
looked very comfortable.

"Now I'm a slave to business," he said. "That horrid place in the New
Road, which we want to buy with your money, has made a prisoner of me
for the last twenty years. I went into it as the boy who was to do
the copying, when your brother first became a partner. Oh dear, how I
did hate it!"

"Did you now?"

"I should rather think I did. I had been brought up at the Merchant
Taylors' and they intended to send me to Oxford. That was five years
before they began the business in the New Road. Then came the crash
which our house had at Manchester; and when we had picked up the
pieces, we found that we had to give up university ideas. However,
I'll make a business of it before I'm done; you see if I don't, Miss
Mackenzie. Your brother has been with us so many years that I have
quite a pleasure in talking to you about it."

Miss Mackenzie was not quite sure that she reciprocated the pleasure;
for, after all, though he did look so much better than she had
expected, he was only Rubb, junior, from Rubb a