aid Alice.

"That poor Western girl, talented as she is, must have been oddly
brought up to be so very rude to her hostess," said Annie.

"I dare say Western girls are brought up differently," said Alice.

Annie was so intent with what she had to tell Alice that she did not
realise the extreme evasiveness of the other's manner.

"Alice," she said.

"Well, little Annie Eustace?"

Annie began, blushed, then hesitated.

"I am going to tell you something. I have told Margaret. I have just
told her this afternoon. I thought it might please her and comfort
her after that terrible scene at her dinner last night, but nobody
else knows except the publishers."

"What is it?" asked Alice, regarding Annie with a little smile.

"Nothing, only I wrote _The Poor Lady_," said Annie.

"My dear Annie, I knew it all the time," said Alice.

Annie stared at her. "How?"

"Well, you did not know it, but you did repeat in that book verbatim,
ad literatim, a sentence, a very striking one, which occurred in one
of your papers which you wrote for the Zenith Club. I noticed that
sentence at the time. It was this: 'A rose has enough beauty and
fragrance to enable it to give very freely and yet itself remain a
rose. It is the case with many endowed natures but that is a fact
which is not always understood.' My dear Annie, I knew that you
wrote the book, for that identical sentence occurs in _The Poor Lady_
on page one hundred forty-two. You see I have fully considered the
matter to remember the exact page. I knew the minute I read that
sentence that my little Annie Eustace had written that successful
anonymous book, and I was the more certain because I had always had
my own opinion as to little Annie's literary ability based upon those
same Zenith Club papers. You will remember that I have often told you
that you should not waste your time writing club papers when you
could do work like that."

Annie looked alarmed. "Oh, Alice," she said, "do you think anybody
else has remembered that sentence?"

"My dear child, I am quite sure that not a blessed woman in that club
has remembered that sentence," said Alice.

"I had entirely forgotten."

"Of course, you had."

"It would be very unfortunate if it were remembered, because the
publishers are so anxious that my name should not be known. You see,
nobody ever heard of me and my name would hurt the sales and the poor
publishers have worked so hard over the advertising, it would be
dr