r cue called in a heartless voice from the inexorable
sky, desperately applying the last dab of flour to their imperfect
complexions. But the witch found no fault with them when they came. She
gave them her whole attention for some minutes.

"Well, well," she said, laying down her fork and spoon, "that's good. I
feel awfully grown-up, having had a proposal. When real girls ask me now
how many I've had, I shall be able to say One. But I met a girl the
other day who had had six. She had six photographs, but she called them
scalps. If you would give me your photograph I could label it A Scalp,
and hang it in the Shop. That would be very grown-up, wouldn't it?"

"You will 'ave your joke," said the Mayor in a hollow voice. "I never
met such a gurl as you for a bit of fun. I don't believe you've got any
'eart."

There, of course, he was right. A heart is a sort of degree conferred by
Providence on those who have passed a certain examination. Magic people
are only freshmen in our college, and it is useless for us--secure in
the possession of many learned letters after our names--to despise them.
They will become sophisticated in due course.

"How d'you mean--heart?" asked the witch therefore. "I've still got an
awful hunger inside me, if that's anything to do with it. I'll tell you
what. It's Wednesday. Let's go and call on Miss Ford. She might have
grassy sandwiches."

There was a most abrupt and disturbing draught in Miss Ford's sleek and
decorous flat as the witch and the Mayor entered it. The serenity of the
night and the morning had been suddenly obliterated, and Kensington
suffered a gust or two of gritty wind which blew the babies home from
the Gardens, and kept all the window-gazers in the High Street on the
alert with their fingers on the triggers of their umbrellas.

But no rain fell. Rain cannot fall in this book of fine weather.

The draught that intruded into the flat ruffled the neat hair of five
persons, Miss Ford herself, Lady Arabel Higgins, Miss Ivy MacBee, Mr.
Bernard Tovey, and Mr. Darnby Frere.

Miss MacBee always seemed to be seated on tenterhooks, even in the most
comfortable of chairs. Her Spartan spine never consented graciously to
the curves of cushions. She had smooth padded hair and smooth padded
manners, and her eyes were magnified by thick pince-nez to a cow-like
size. Most people, especially most women, were instinctively sorry for
her, because she always looked a little clever and very u