a
chapter in a book, the former like a paragraph. At the chapter's end
vacant space insists on a pause for thought, for approval or
condemnation of its contents. But every paragraph is as it were kindled
from the last sentence of its predecessor; as soon as each ends the next
is ready. The reader aloud is on all fours with the cigarette-smoker. He
doesn't always enjoy himself so much, but that is neither here nor
there.

It was not during the first cigarette that Mr. Pellew said to Aunt
Constance:--"Where is it they have gone to-day, do you know?" That first
one heard, if it listened, all about the lady's home in Dorsetshire and
her obnoxious stepmother. It may have wondered, if it was an observant
cigarette, at the unreserve with which the narrator took its smoker into
the bosom of her confidence, and the lively interest her story provoked.
If it had--which is not likely, considering the extent of its
experience--a shrewd perception of the philosophy of reciprocity,
probably it wondered less. It heard to the end of the topic, and Mr.
Pellew asked the question above stated, as he screwed up its successor,
and exacted the death-duty of an ignition from it.

"They ought to be coming back soon," was the answer. "I told them I
wouldn't have tea till they came. They're gone to see a _protegee_ of
Clotilda's, who lives down a Court. It's not very far off; under a mile,
I should think. We saw him in the street, coming from the
railway-station. He looked a nice boy. That is to say, he would have
looked nice, only he and his friends had all been blacking their faces
with burnt cork."

"What a lark! Why didn't you go to the Court?... I'm jolly glad you
didn't, you know, but you might have...." This was just warm enough for
the position. With its slight extenuation of slang, it might rank as
mere emphasized civility.

It was Miss Dickenson's turn to word something ambiguous to cover all
contingencies. "Yes, I should have been very sorry if you had come to
bring the book, and not found me here." This was clever, backed by a
smile. She went on:--"They thought two would be quite enough,
considering the size of the Court."

A spirit of accommodation prevailed. Oh yes--Mr. Pellew quite saw that.
Very sensible! "It don't do," said he, "to make too much of a descent on
this sort of people. They never know what to make of it, and the thing
don't wash!" But he was only saying what came to hand; because he was
extremely glad Miss Dic