her; the two youngest children, Georgina
and Myrtle, who had been strutting in and out of the room, and otherwise
endeavouring to walk, talk, and speak like the gentleman just gone away,
were packed off to bed. Emmeline, of that transitional age which causes
its exponent to look wistfully at the sitters when romping and at the
rompers when sitting, uncertain whether her position in the household is
that of child or woman, was idling in a corner. The two absent brothers
and two absent sisters--eldest members of the family--completed the round
ten whom Mrs. Chickerel with thoughtless readiness had presented to a
crowded world, to cost Ethelberta many wakeful hours at night while she
revolved schemes how they might be decently maintained.

'I still think,' Ethelberta was saying, 'that the plan I first proposed
is the best. I am convinced that it will not do to attempt to keep on
the Lodge. If we are all together in town, I can look after you much
better than when you are far away from me down here.'

'Shall we not interfere with you--your plans for keeping up your
connections?' inquired her mother, glancing up towards Ethelberta by
lifting the flesh of her forehead, instead of troubling to raise her face
altogether.

'Not nearly so much as by staying here.'

'But,' said Picotee, 'if you let lodgings, won't the gentlemen and ladies
know it?'

'I have thought of that,' said Ethelberta, 'and this is how I shall
manage. In the first place, if mother is there, the lodgings can be let
in her name, all bills will be receipted by her, and all tradesmen's
orders will be given as from herself. Then, we will take no English
lodgers at all; we will advertise the rooms only in Continental
newspapers, as suitable for a French or German gentleman or two, and by
this means there will be little danger of my acquaintance discovering
that my house is not entirely a private one, or of any lodger being a
friend of my acquaintance. I have thought over every possible way of
combining the dignified social position I must maintain to make my story-
telling attractive, with my absolute lack of money, and I can see no
better one.'

'Then if Gwendoline is to be your cook, she must soon give notice at her
present place?'

'Yes. Everything depends upon Gwendoline and Cornelia. But there is
time enough for them to give notice--Christmas will be soon enough. If
they cannot or will not come as cook and housemaid, I am afraid the plan
wi