yes, half friendly and half defensive, as though chaffing
to prevent herself from being chaffed, Cecilia looked at Mrs. Tallents
Smallpeace, whom she had met several times at Bianca's house. The widow
of a somewhat famous connoisseur, she was now secretary of the League for
Educating Orphans who have Lost both Parents, vice-president of the
Forlorn Hope for Maids in Peril, and treasurer to Thursday Hops for
Working Girls. She seemed to know every man and woman who was worth
knowing, and some besides; to see all picture-shows; to hear every new
musician; and attend the opening performance of every play. With regard
to literature, she would say that authors bored her; but she was always
doing them good turns, inviting them to meet their critics or editors,
and sometimes--though this was not generally known--pulling them out of
the holes they were prone to get into, by lending them a sum of
money--after which, as she would plaintively remark; she rarely saw them
more.

She had a peculiar spiritual significance to Mrs. Stephen Dallison, being
just on the borderline between those of Bianca's friends whom Cecilia did
not wish and those whom she did wish to come to her own house, for
Stephen, a barrister in an official position, had a keen sense of the
ridiculous. Since Hilary wrote books and was a poet, and Bianca painted,
their friends would naturally be either interesting or queer; and though
for Stephen's sake it was important to establish which was which, they
were so very often both. Such people stimulated, taken in small doses,
but neither on her husband's account nor on her daughter's did Cecilia
desire that they should come to her in swarms. Her attitude of mind
towards them was, in fact, similar-a sort of pleasurable dread-to that in
which she purchased the Westminster Gazette to feel the pulse of social
progress.

Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace's dark little eyes twinkled.

"I hear that Mr. Stone--that is your father's name, I think--is writing a
book which will create quite a sensation when it comes out."

Cecilia bit her lips. "I hope it never will come out," she was on the
point of saying.

"What will it be called?" asked Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace. "I gather
that it's a book of Universal Brotherhood. That's so nice!"

Cecilia made a movement of annoyance. "Who told you?"

"Ah!" said Mrs. Tallents Smallpeace, "I do think your sister gets such
attractive people at her At Homes. They all take such intere