ble, he would have caught on, and it would have come
off. Because they all want _me_, always."

"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully at one
another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a hopeless case. Then
Miss Grahame said:--"Then you consider Constance Dickenson is still
palatable?" She laughed on the word a little--a sort of protest. "At
nearly forty?"

"Oh dear, yes! Not that she's forty, nor anything like it. She's
thirty-six. Besides, it has nothing to do with age. Or very little.
Why--how old is that dear old lady at Chorlton that was jealous of your
little boy's old woman in London?"

"Old Goody Marrable? Over eighty. But the other old lady is older still,
and Dave speaks well of her, anyhow! We shall see her to-morrow. We must
insist on that."

"Well--I could kiss old Goody Marrable. I should be sorry for her bones,
of course. But they're not her fault, after all! She's quite an old
darling. I hope Aunt Connie and Percy will manage a little common sense
to-morrow. They'll have the house to themselves, anyhow. Ta bye-bye,
Chloe dear!"

* * * * *

Miss Grahame looked in on her way to her own room to see that Miss
Dickenson had been provided with all the accessories of a good night--a
margin of pillows and blankets _a choix_, and so on. Hot-water-bottle
time had scarcely come yet, but hospitality might refer to it. There
was, however, a word to say touching the evening just ended. What did
Miss Grahame think of Gwen? Aunt Constance's _parti pris_ in life was a
benevolent interest in the affairs of everybody else.

Miss Grahame thought Gwen was all right. The amount of nonsense she had
talked to-night showed she was a little excited. A sort of ostentatious
absurdity, like a spoiled child! Well--she has been a spoiled child. But
she--the speaker--always had believed, did still believe, that Gwen was
a fine character underneath, and that all her nonsense was on the
surface.

"Will she hold to it, do you think?"

"How can I tell? I should say yes. But one never knows. She's writing
him a long letter now. She's in the next room to me, and I heard her
scratching five minutes after she said good-night. I hope she won't
scribble all night and keep me awake. My belief is she would be better
for some counter-excitement. A small earthquake! Anything of that sort.
Good-night! It's very late." But it came out next day that Gwen's pen
was still scratch