n could have hundreds of frocks if she wanted to, and that young
pretty women often couldn't. It was very, very unjust and stupid. Why
she, Gwen, hadn't enough money even to buy a wretched umbrella. It
looked exactly as if it was going to rain later on, and yet there was
no umbrella she could borrow. The umbrella she had borrowed before, had
disappeared from the stand: it must have been left by somebody and been
returned. You can't borrow an umbrella that isn't there. It was all very
well for her mother to say "borrow" an umbrella, but suppose there
wasn't an umbrella! The idea flashed into Gwen's mind that an umbrella
could be bought for ten shillings. It wouldn't be a smart umbrella, but
it would be an umbrella. Then she remembered very vividly how, a year
ago, she was in a railway carriage with her mother and there was one
woman there sitting in a corner at the other end. This woman fidgeted
with her purse a great deal, and when she got out, a sovereign was lying
on the floor just where her feet had been. Gwen remembered her mother
moving swiftly, picking it up, and putting the coin into her own purse,
remarking, "If people are so careless they deserve to lose things," and
Gwen felt that the remark was keenly just, and made several little
things "right" that other people had said were wrong. Now, as she
thought this over, she said to herself that it was only a week ago she
had lost that umbrella: somebody must have got that umbrella and had
been using it for a week, and she didn't blame them; beside the handle
had got rather bashed. Another dozen steps towards the rooms made her
feel very, very sure she didn't blame them, and--Mrs. Potten deserved to
lose her ten-shilling note. Now she had reached the doorway, an idea,
that was a natural development of the previous idea, came to her very
definitely. She slipped the note into the right-hand pocket of her coat
just as she stood on the threshold of the doorway, and then she ran up
the stone stairs. No one was looking out of the window. She had noticed
that as she came along. Now, she would see if Mrs. Potten was really
careless enough not to know that she had given away two ten-shilling
notes instead of one.

Gwendolen walked into the sitting-room. There were Mrs. Potten and Lady
Dashwood sitting together and talking, as if they intended remaining
there for ever.

"Here's your collar, Mrs. Potten," said Gwen, coming in with the
prettiest flush on her face, from the has