cels.'

'They are not for you; she brings parcels because I ask her to do
shopping for me. It's very kind of her.'

She waited a minute, then he said:

'Mother, do let me be here when Miss Bennett brings the parcels. I'll
be very useful. I can untie parcels with my teeth, like this. Look! I
throw myself on the parcel just like a dog, and shake it and shake it,
and then I untie it with my teeth. It would be awfully useful.'

She refused the kind offer.

Miss Bennett arrived as usual with the parcels, looking pleasantly
business-like and important.

'I wonder if these things will do?' she said, as she put them out on
the table.

'Oh, they're sure to do,' said Edith; 'they're perfect.'

'My dear, wait till you see them. I don't think I've completed all your
list.' She took out a piece of paper.

'Where did you get everything?' Edith asked, without much interest.

'At Boots', principally. Then the novels--Arnold Bennett, Maxwell--Oh,
and I've got you the poem: 'What is it?' by Gilbert Frankau.'

'No, you mean, 'One of us',' corrected Edith.

'Then white serge for nurse to make Dilly's skirts--skirts a quarter of
a yard long!--how sweet!--and heaps and heaps of muslin, you see, for
her summer dresses. Won't she look an angel? Oh, and you told me to get
some things to keep Archie quiet in the train.' She produced a drum, a
trumpet, and a mechanical railway train. 'Will that do?'

'Beautifully.'

'And here's your travelling cloak from the other place.'

'It looks lovely,' said Edith.

'Aren't you going to try it on?'

'No; it's sure to be all right.'

'I never saw such a woman as you! Here are the hats. You've _got_ to
choose these.'

Here Edith showed more interest. She put them on, said all the colour
must be taken out of them, white put in one, black velvet in the other.
Otherwise they would do.

'Thanks, Grace; you're awfully kind and clever. Now do you know what
you're going to do? You're going to the Academy with me and Aylmer.
He's coming to fetch us.'

'Oh, really--what fun!'

At this moment he arrived. Edith introduced them.

'I've been having such a morning's shopping,' she said, 'I deserve a
little treat afterwards, don't I?'

'What sort of shopping? I'll tell you what you ought to have--a great
cricket match when the shopping season's over, between the Old
Selfridgians, and the Old Harrodians,' he said, laughing.

They walked through acres of oil paintings and dozens of portraits of