e had gone to the truth.
One boarder only she accepted into the establishment. It had not been
her intention to have any. But one day a lady had written from
Winchester to say that through a friend of a friend of Lady Bray's,
she had heard of Mrs. Bishop's preparatory school for the sons of
gentlemen. She was compelled, she concluded in her letter, to go for
some little time to live in London and, though she knew that Mrs.
Bishop only accepted day pupils at her house, she would consider it
a great favour if, for a term or so, she would consent to the admission
of her son as a boarder. If such an arrangement were possible, she
would be glad to know the terms which Mrs. Bishop would deem most
reasonable.

For the rest of that day there had been unprecedented excitement at
No. 17, Wyatt Street. Until late that evening Elsie and Dora Bishop,
in consultation with their mother, went into all the financial
details of the undertaking. Little Maurice Priestly could sleep in
the small room at the top of the house, used then as a box room. The
smallness of the window in the sloping ceiling could easily be
disguised by lace curtains at six three-farthings a yard.

"Put that down," Mrs. Bishop had said; and the item of capital outlay
had gone down on a half-sheet of note-paper.

To Cailsham they had brought with them an old armchair convertible,
at considerable risk to the fingers, into a shake-down bed.

"We needn't buy a bed, then," said Mrs. Bishop.

"No; but it'll need some sort of coverlet to make it look decent.
I've seen them at Robinson's in the High Street for two and
eleven-three."

"Put that down," said Mrs. Bishop.

By ten o'clock the list of expenses had been compiled. By eleven
o'clock it was decided what would be the cost of board and lodging
for an adult--a little being added on to that for visionary
extras--soap, light, towels, and suchlike, less visionary than
others, but extras nevertheless.

When Mallins, the constable on night duty, passed down Wyatt Street
at quarter-past eleven and saw a light in No. 17, he stopped in
amazement and gazed through a chink in the old Venetian blind.

"It's 'ard on that Mrs. Bishop," he said to his wife the next morning,
"the way she 'as to work."

That same morning a letter had been despatched to Mrs. Priestly, and
by return of post came the reply--

"I suppose what you ask is quite reasonable. I am bringing Maurice
to you the day after to-morrow."

"Suppose!" sa