bed as plump some
day, if she doesn't take care.

But really it is a breach of confidence to get behind the scenes and
describe two ladies in this way, when they are so very much in
_deshabille_--have not even washed! We will look at them again when
they have got their things on. However, they may go on talking now.
The blaze has lost its splendour, and dressing cannot be indefinitely
delayed. But they can and do talk from room to room, confident that
cook and Jane are in the basement out of hearing.

"We shall do nicely, kitten! Six at table. I'm glad Mr. Fenwick can
come. Aren't you?"

"Rather! Fancy having Dr. and Mrs. Vereker and the dear old fossil
and nobody to help out!"

"My dear! You say 'Dr. and Mrs. Vereker' as if he was a married man!"

"Well--him and his mammy, then! He's good--but he's professional.
Oh dear--his professional manner! You have to be forming square to
receive cavalry every five minutes to prevent his writing you a
prescription."

"Ungrateful little monkey! You know the last he wrote you did you no
end of good."

"Yes, but I didn't ask him for it. He wrote it by force. I hate being
hectored over and bullied. I say, mother!"

"What, kitten?"

"I hope, as Mr. Fenwick's coming, you'll wear your wedding-ring."

"Wear _what_?"

"Wear your wedding-ring. _His_ ring, you know! You know what I
mean--the rheumatic one."

"Of course I know perfectly well what you mean," says her mother,
with a shade of impatience in her voice. "But why?"

"Why? Because it gives him pleasure always to see it on your
finger--he fancies it's doing good to the neuritis."

"Perhaps it is."

"Very well, then; why not wear it?"

"Because it's so big, and comes off in the soup, and is a nuisance.
And, then, he didn't give it to me, either. He was to have had a
shilling for it."

"But he never _did_ have it. And it wasn't a shilling. It was sixpence.
And he says it's the only little return he's ever been able to make
for what he calls our kindness."

"I couldn't shovel him out into the street."

"Put his wedding-ring on, mammy, to oblige me!"

"Very well, chick--I don't mind." And so that point is settled. But
something makes the daughter repeat, as she comes into her mother's
room dry-towelling herself, "You're sure you don't mind, mammy?" to
which the reply is, "No, no! _Why_ should I mind? It's all quite
right," with a forced decision, equivalent to wavering, about it.
Sally looks at her a moment i