thus working hard could she keep herself, her
husband, and daughter, in due touch with all the different movements
going on. And that the touch might be as due as possible, she had a
little headache nearly every day. For the dread of letting slip one
movement, or of being too much taken with another, was very real to her;
there were so many people who were interesting, so many sympathies of
hers and Stephen's which she desired to cultivate, that it was a matter
of the utmost import not to cultivate any single one too much. Then,
too, the duty of remaining feminine with all this going forward taxed
her constitution. She sometimes thought enviously of the splendid
isolation now enjoyed by Blanca, of which some subtle instinct, rather
than definite knowledge, had informed her; but not often, for she was a
loyal little person, to whom Stephen and his comforts were of the first
moment. And though she worried somewhat because her thoughts WOULD come
by every post, she did not worry very much--hardly more than the Persian
kitten on her lap, who also sat for hours trying to catch her tail, with
a line between her eyes, and two small hollows in her cheeks.

When she had at last decided what concerts she would be obliged to miss,
paid her subscription to the League for the Suppression of Tinned Milk,
and accepted an invitation to watch a man fall from a balloon, she
paused. Then, dipping her pen in ink, she wrote as follows:

"Mrs. Stephen Dallison would be glad to have the blue dress ordered by
her yesterday sent home at once without alteration.--Messrs. Rose and
Thorn, High Street, Kensington."

Ringing the bell, she thought: 'It will be a job for Mrs. Hughs, poor
thing. I believe she'll do it quite as well as Rose and Thorn.'--"Would
you please ask Mrs. Hughs to come to me?--Oh, is that you, Mrs. Hughs?
Come in."

The seamstress, who had advanced into the middle of the room, stood with
her worn hands against her sides, and no sign of life but the liquid
patience in her large brown eyes. She was an enigmatic figure. Her
presence always roused a sort of irritation in Cecilia, as if she had
been suddenly confronted with what might possibly have been herself if
certain little accidents had omitted to occur. She was so conscious that
she ought to sympathise, so anxious to show that there was no barrier
between them, so eager to be all she ought to be, that her voice almost
purred.

"Are you Getting on with the curtains, Mrs.