.... Rose Mullet is engaged to be married
and is only--she told me yesterday with many blushes--staying on to
oblige us. Lilian Steynes said the other day that if we were making
any changes in the office, much as she liked her work here, her
mother having died she thought it was her duty to go and live with
her maternal aunt in the country. The aunt thinks she can get her a
post as a brewery clerk at Aylesbury, and she is longing to breed
Aylesbury ducks in her spare time.--There is Bertie Adams, it's
true. There's something so staunch about him and he is so useful
that he and Praed and Stead are the three exceptions I make in my
general hatred of mankind..."

_Norie_: "He will be very much cut up at your going--or seeming to
go."

_Vivie_: "Just so. I think I shall write him a farewell note,
saying it's only for a time: I mean, that I may return later
on--dormant partnership--nothing really changed, don't you know? But
that as Rose and Lilian are going, Mrs.--what does she call herself,
Claridge?"--(Norie interpolates: "Yes, that was her idea: she
doesn't want to blazon the name of Clarges as the symbol of Free
Love, 'cos of the dear old Dean; yet Claridge will not be too much
of a surrender and is sure to invoke respectability, because of the
Hotel")--"Mrs. Claridge, then, is coming in my stead--He's to help
her all he can--and my cousin, who is reading for the Bar, will also
look in when you are very busy. I shall, of course, see about
rooms in one of the Inns of Court--the Temple perhaps. I have
been stealthily watching Fig Tree Court. I _think_ I can get
chambers there--a man is turning out next month--got a Colonial
appointment--I've put my new name down at the lodge and I shall have
to rack my brains for references--you will do for one--or perhaps
not--however that I can work out later. Of course I won't take the
final plunge till I have secured the rooms. Meantime I will use my
bedroom here but promise you I will be awfully prudent..."

_Norie_: "I couldn't possibly have Beryl 'living in,' with a child
hanging about the place; so I think if you _do_ go I shall turn your
bedroom into an apartment which Beryl and I can use for toilet
purposes but where we can range out on book-shelves a whole lot of
our books. Just now they are most inconveniently stored away in
boxes. It's rather tiresome about Beryl. I believe she's going to
have _another_ child. At any rate she says it may be four months
before she can com