ome. It wouldn't have been so bad if only
she had been quiet, but she is the most restless person I have ever
known. She was always running up and down stairs, banging doors,
playing fragments on the piano, and dashing into the study to talk to
Henry when he was writing.

He is, on the whole, an equable man, but more than once I trembled for
the consequences when I saw her go up to him, lean over his shoulder
and, snatching at some loose pages of his MS., playfully remark, 'What
funny crabbed letters! And what is it all about--something you're
inventing to deceive us poor public, I'll be bound. I don't believe a
word of what you're writing, so there!'

Henry used to say scorching things about Gladys when we retired at
night (the only chance we seemed to have now of being alone was in our
bedroom), and would ask me when I meant to tell her to go. I suggested
he should tell her himself, and he declared it was not the duty of the
host. I replied that it was the first time I'd ever heard it was the
duty of the hostess either.

We planned to make little speeches in her presence based on the subject
of her departure, and fraught with deep and subtle allusion, but she
ignored them. We inquired if her mother did not miss her after such a
prolonged absence, and she said they rather liked her to be away from
home for a few months in the year, as a change was always good. No
doubt it was good for her people, but it was bad for Henry and me.

Then one night Henry revolted. 'If she hasn't gone in another two
days,' he informed me, 'I'm going to get rooms at an hotel.'

He spoke as if he meant it, and I was mournfully wondering what I ought
to do to get Gladys to go, short of being downright rude, when
Elizabeth drifted into the problem.

'If Miss 'Arringay's goin' to stop much longer, I ain't,' she
announced. 'She makes too much extry work, an' the sight o' 'er about
the place fair riles me.'

I looked wearily at Elizabeth. 'No doubt Miss Harringay will be going
soon,' I said with an utter lack of conviction.

Elizabeth approached me, and bending down, said in a hoarse whisper,
'Wot is it--carn't you get rid of 'er?'

[Illustration: 'Carn't you get rid of 'er?']

I did not reply, feeling it distasteful to discuss my guest with a
domestic, though I could not refrain from discussing her with Henry.

'Tell you wot you orter do,' said the fertile Elizabeth, 'send for Miss
Marryun to come 'ere unexpected, an' then