course, Mother will give
her anything she wants."

"It isn't silly," said Jeremy. "Perhaps she'll want more than she really
wants. I often do."

"Oh, you!" said Helen.

"And if for ever so long," said Jeremy, "she hasn't had enough to eat,
she'll want twice as big meals now as other people--to make up."

"Mother says we've got to remember she's a lady," said Helen.

"What's the difference," asked Jeremy, "between a lady and not a lady?"

"Oh, you are!" said Helen. "Why, Aunt Amy's a lady, and Rose isn't."

"Rose is nicer," said Jeremy.

Miss Jones had, I am sorry to say, lied to Mrs. Cole in one particular.
She had told her that "she had had to do with children all her life,"
the fact being that on several occasions some little cousins had come to
stay with herself and her brother. On these occasions the little
cousins had been so paralysed with terror that discipline had not been
difficult. It was from these experiences that Miss Jones flattered
herself that "she understood children."

So audacious a self-confidence is doomed to invite the scornful
punishment of the gods.

Miss Jones arrived upon a wet January afternoon, one of those Glebeshire
days when the town sinks into a bath of mud and mist and all the pipes
run water and the eaves drip and horses splash and only ducks are happy.
Out of a blurred lamp-lit dusk stumbled Miss Jones's cab, and out of a
blurred unlit cab stumbled Miss Jones.

As she stood in the hall trying to look warm and amiable, Mrs. Cole's
heart forsook her. On that earlier day of her visit Miss Jones had
looked possible, sitting up in Mrs. Cole's drawing-room, smiling her
brightest, because she so desperately needed the situation, and wearing
her best dress. Now she was all in pieces; she had had to leave her
little village early in the morning to catch the village bus; she had
waited at wayside stations, as in Glebeshire only one can wait; the
world had dripped upon her head and spattered upon her legs. She had
neuralgia and a pain in her back; she had worn her older dress because,
upon such a day, it would not do to travel in her best; and then, as a
climax to everything, she had left her umbrella in the train. How she
could do such a thing upon such a day! Her memory was not her strongest
point, poor lady, and it was a good umbrella, and she could not afford
to buy another. Perhaps they would find it for her, but it was very
unlikely.

She had had it for a number of years.