s. Mutimer, who had been talked over to compliance with a project she
felt Richard would not approve--she had no longer the old authority,
and spent her days in trying to piece on the present life to the
former--found refuge in a habit more suitable to the kitchen than the
dining-room; she had collected all the teaspoons within reach and was
pouring hot-water upon them in the slop-basin, the familiar preliminary
to washing up.

'A gen'leman as lives near here,' responded 'Arry. 'He writes for the
newspapers. His name's Keene.'

'Oh? And how came you to know him?'

'Met him,' was the airy reply.

'And you've brought him here?'

'Well, he's been here once.'

'He said as he wanted to know you, Dick,' put in Mrs. Mutimer. 'He was
really a civil-spoken man, and he gave 'Arry a lot of help with his
books.'

'When was he here?'

'Last Friday.'

'And to-night he wants to take you to the theatre?'

The question was addressed to Alice.

'It won't cost him anything,' she replied. 'He says he can always get
free passes.'

'No doubt. Is he coming here to fetch you? I shall be glad to see him.'

Richard's tone was ambiguous. He put down his cup, and said to Alice--

'Come and let me hear how you get on with your playing.' Alice followed
into the drawing-room. For the furnishing of the new house Richard had
not trusted to his own instincts, but had taken counsel with a firm
that he knew from advertisements. The result was commonplace, but not
intolerable. His front room was regarded as the Princess's peculiar
domain; she alone dared to use it freely--declined, indeed, to sit
elsewhere. Her mother only came a few feet within the door now and then;
if obliged by Alice to sit down, she did so on the edge of a chair as
near to the door as possible. Most of her time Mrs. Mutimer still
spent in the kitchen. She had resolutely refused to keep more than one
servant, and everything that servant did she all Alice's objections she
opposed an obstinate silence. What herself performed over again, even
to the making of beds. To was the poor woman to do? She had never in her
life read more than an occasional paragraph of police news, and could
not be expected to take up literature at her age. Though she made
no complaint, signs were not wanting that she had begun to suffer in
health. She fretted through the nights, and was never really at peace
save when she anticipated the servant in rising early, and had an honest
scrub at sauce