e
exhausted, and came out next to the bottom. Next week there's `A Florin
Tea.' What happens to a florin? Do they give us one all round? And a
Photograph Tea after that. Everyone takes a photograph of herself as a
baby, and you guess Who's who. There's going to be some scope for
personal remarks. There is a Smelling Tea too, but I'm going to be ill
for that. She means well, dear lady, and I accepted with pleasure, but
I shall stay at home with more. I couldn't respect myself going about
smelling at little bags..."

"They tried the same sort of thing with me years ago, but I steadily
refused, and now they have given me up. You'll have no peace in
Chumley, Grizel, if you let yourself in for these dreadful
entertainments. You'll be asked out to tea every afternoon of your
life, to meet the same people, and sit in the same rooms, and hear the
same little gossip over and over again."

"But that makes them so keen to have _me_ for a change!" Grizel said,
laughing. "My dear, they adore me. I'm a _succes fou_. I wear
different clothes wherever I go, and say all the maddest things that
come into my head, and they hang on my every word. The Kate hostess
nearly cried because I didn't get the prize. She was trying to give me
hints all the time. It was touching! And I was _so_ stupid."

Cassandra regarded her with a puzzled air.

"I believe you really enjoy it! And it's so different from your old
life, just as different as it was for me. I can't think why you aren't
bored!"

"I'm never bored," Grizel declared. "At least, not all at a time. It's
such a funny old world, and a bit of me is interested in everything that
comes along. Besides, I adore kindness, even when it disguises itself
in Kate teas, and the least I can do is to be agreeable in return. But
I am thankful that I have you, Cassandra. I should be lost without one
real friend, who speaks my own language."

There was no procrastination in Grizel's nature; what she had to do,
must be done at once, if it were to be done at all. Straight from the
kitchen she adjourned to the telephone, rang up Teresa to make sure of
the guests of honour, and then proceeded to scribble half a dozen of the
most informal of invitations for an unfashionably early date, which were
despatched forthwith to the post. In an incredibly short space of time
the answers were received, one and all accepting with pleasure, and
Cook, divided between depression and elation, n