lar, and as soon as her visitor had left her this
morning, she popped out to see Mr. Wootten, her coal-merchant. She
returned in a state of fury, for there were no regulations whatever in
existence with regard to the amount of coal that any householder might
choose to amass, and Mr. Wootten complimented her on her prudence in
having got in a reasonable supply, for he thought it quite probable
that, if the coal strike took place, there would be some difficulty in
month's time from now in replenishing cellars. "But we've had a good
supply all the summer," added agreeable Mr. Wootten, "and all my
customers have got their cellars well stocked."

Diva rapidly recollected that the perfidious Elizabeth was among them.

"O but, Mr. Wootten," she said, "Miss Mapp popped--dropped in to see me
just now. Told me she had hardly got any."

Mr. Wootten turned up his ledger. It was not etiquette to disclose the
affairs of one client to another, but if there was a cantankerous
customer, one who was never satisfied with prices and quality, that
client was Miss Mapp.... He allowed a broad grin to overspread his
agreeable face.

"Well, ma'am, if in a month's time I'm short of coal, there are friends
of yours in Tilling who can let you have plenty," he permitted himself
to say....

It was idle to attempt to cut out bunches of roses while her hand was so
feverish, and she trundled up and down the High Street to cool off. Had
she not been so prudent as to make inquiries, as likely as not she would
have sent a ton of coal that very day to the hospital, so strongly had
Elizabeth's perfidious warning inflamed her imagination as to the fate
of hoarders, and all the time Elizabeth's own cellars were glutted,
though she had asserted that she was almost fuelless. Why, she must have
in her possession more coal than Diva herself, since Mr. Wootten had
clearly implied that it was Elizabeth who could be borrowed from! And
all because of a wretched piece of rose-madder worsted....

By degrees she calmed down, for it was no use attempting to plan revenge
with a brain at fever-heat. She must be calm and icily ingenious. As the
cooling-process went on she began to wonder whether it was worsted alone
that had prompted her friend's diabolical suggestion. It seemed more
likely that another motive (one strangely Elizabethan) was the cause of
it. Elizabeth might be taken for certain as being a coal-hoarder
herself, and it was ever so like her to divert sus