a woman of the world, Mrs.
Gainsborough----"

"I was once," she corrected. "And a very naughty world it was, too."

"You were glad, weren't you, when the Captain brought you to this house?
You were glad to feel secure? You would have married him?"

"No, I wouldn't marry him. I preferred to be as I am. Still that's
nothing for Lily to go by. She's more suited for marriage than what I
was."

"Don't you think," Michael went on eagerly, "that if after six years I'm
longing to marry her, I ought to marry her? I know that she might be
much worse off than she is, but equally she might be much better off.
Look here, Mrs. Gainsborough, it's up to you. You've got to make it
possible for me to see her. You've got to."

"But if I do anything like that," said Mrs. Gainsborough, "it means I
have an unpleasantness with Sylvia. That girl's a regular heathen when
she turns nasty. I should be left all alone in my little house. And what
with Spring coming on and all, and the flowers looking so nice in the
garden, I should feel very much the square peg in the round hole."

"Lily and I would come and see you," he promised. "And I don't think
Sylvia would leave you. She'd never find another house like Mulberry
Cottage or another landlady like you."

"Yes, I daresay; but you can't tell these things. Once she's in her
tantrums, there's no saying what will happen. And, besides, I don't know
what you want me to do."

"I want you to send me word the first moment that Lily's alone for an
hour; and when I ring, do answer the bell."

"Now that wasn't my fault yesterday," said Mrs. Gainsborough. "Really I
thought we should have the fire-escape in. The way you nagged at that
poor bell! It was really chronic. But would she let me so much as speak
to you, even with the door only on the jar? Certainly not! And all the
time she was snapping round the house like a young crocodile. And yet
I'm really fond of that girl. Well, when the Captain died, she was a
daughter to me. Oh, she was, she was really a daughter to me. Well, you
see, his sister invited me to the funeral, which I thought was very
nice, her being an old maid and very strict. Now, I hardly liked to put
on a widow's cap and yet I hardly didn't like to. But Sylvia, she said
not on any account, and I was very glad I didn't, because there was a
lot of persons there very stand-offish, and I should have been at my
wits to know whatever I was going to say."

"Look here," said Michael. "Whe