w; but I will ask my employer's
leave to have the afternoon off,' said Stella.

'Of course you can have the afternoon, and you will come back and dine
with us, won't you--you and your sister? I should like you to know my
son better,' Mrs. Jones begged her.

Stella thought this rather an odd way of speaking, as she did not know
the aforesaid son, 'better or worse,' nor had she any desire to know
him, and was sure that she could picture him as a young edition of his
bullet-headed, commonplace-looking father; but she felt that she could
not refuse the invitation to dinner, and accepted it with her pretty
smile, which made Mrs. Jones forgive a good deal.

'My son will be very pleased,' was her reply, which made Stella almost
repent of her acceptance, and she was surprised at Mrs. Jones's
continual and tactless references to her son and heir, as Stella
bitterly felt. She understood, or thought she understood, that in a way
Mrs. Jones and this son felt that they had ousted her from her
inheritance, and wanted to make amends to her. 'As if they could!' she
said with some scorn.

However, it was impossible to remain untouched by such kindness, and
when Mrs. Morrison brought in hot scones she said quite friendlily,
'This is in your honour, Mrs. Jones; nursie does not make scones for
every one, and I don't think I should have been favoured this afternoon,
as Vava is out.'

So Mrs. Jones went away quite satisfied with her visit, and told her
husband, with a sigh of relief, 'She's actually coming; but upon my
word, Monty, I doubt if the game's worth the candle. It's more
exhausting to try and get on with that young woman than any number of
haughty dowagers, and really I should be sorry for our boy to fall in
love with her; it would be slow work having a statue for a wife.'

'She would not be a statue if she were a happy wife; the City has
petrified her,' said Mr. Jones.

'I don't remember that she was particularly unbending at Lomore before
the City had time to chill her,' said Mrs. Montague Jones dryly.

'No, but adversity had done that,' her husband reminded her; and he was
as pleased as his wife at Stella's acceptance of their invitation.

But this was nothing to Vava's delight. 'And you actually are going? I
am so glad, and you are going to see _Henry VIII._ also! Nursie must
make haste and finish my black embroidered silk, and I must finish
reading the play. Mr. Jones says it's splendidly staged!' she exclaimed.

'