t her gaze
fixed on the tea-cup she had not yet succeeded in transferring to his
hand.--"'Of the sewer,'" her husband resumed; "'but his wonder is
proportionately great when he lights on a novel as sweetly inoffensive
as Paula Fetherel's "Fast and Loose." Mrs. Fetherel is, we believe, a
new hand at fiction, and her work reveals frequent traces of
inexperience; but these are more than atoned for by her pure, fresh
view of life and her altogether unfashionable regard for the reader's
moral susceptibilities. Let no one be induced by its distinctly
misleading title to forego the enjoyment of this pleasant picture of
domestic life, which, in spite of a total lack of force in
character-drawing and of consecutiveness in incident, may be described
as a distinctly pretty story.'"

III

It was several weeks later that Mrs. Clinch once more brought the
plebeian aroma of heated tram-cars and muddy street-crossings into the
violet-scented atmosphere of her cousin's drawing-room.

"Well," she said, tossing a damp bundle of proof into the corner of a
silk-cushioned bergere, "I've read it at last and I'm not so awfully
shocked!"

Mrs. Fetherel, who sat near the fire with her head propped on a languid
hand, looked up without speaking.

"Mercy, Paula," said her visitor, "you're ill."

Mrs. Fetherel shook her head. "I was never better," she said,
mournfully.

"Then may I help myself to tea? Thanks."

Mrs. Clinch carefully removed her mended glove before taking a buttered
tea-cake; then she glanced again at her cousin.

"It's not what I said just now--?" she ventured.

"Just now?"

"About 'Fast and Loose'? I came to talk it over."

Mrs. Fetherel sprang to her feet. "I never," she cried dramatically,
"want to hear it mentioned again!"

"Paula!" exclaimed Mrs. Clinch, setting down her cup.

Mrs. Fetherel slowly turned on her an eye brimming with the
incommunicable; then, dropping into her seat again, she added, with a
tragic laugh, "There's nothing left to say."

"Nothing--?" faltered Mrs. Clinch, longing for another tea-cake, but
feeling the inappropriateness of the impulse in an atmosphere so
charged with the portentous. "Do you mean that everything _has_ been
said?" She looked tentatively at her cousin. "Haven't they been nice?"

"They've been odious--odious--" Mrs. Fetherel burst out, with an
ineffectual clutch at her handkerchief. "It's been perfectly
intolerable!"

Mrs. Clinch, philosophically resigning hersel