ather Dormer is
dining here to-night."

The Duchessa had laughed. It was so entirely like Tibby to think of food
the first thing.

"I know," she had replied. And then reflectively, "I think it might be
desirable to telephone to Doctor Hilary and ask him to come too. It
really is not fair to ask Father Dormer to meet three solitary females."

A second time Miss Tibbutt had momentarily and mentally surveyed the
contents of the larder, and almost immediately had nodded her entire
approval of the idea. She most thoroughly enjoyed the mild excitement of
a little dinner party.

"Tibby, angel, what's the matter with Pia?"

The question fell rather like a bomb, though quite a small bomb, into the
sunshine.

"Matter with Pia," echoed Miss Tibbutt. "What do you think, my dear?"

"That," said Trix wisely, "is precisely what I am asking you?"

Miss Tibbutt laid down her knitting.

"But do you think anything _is_ the matter?" she questioned anxiously.

"I don't think, I know," remarked Trix succinctly.

Miss Tibbutt took off her spectacles.

"But she is so bright," she said.

Trix nodded emphatically.

"That's just it. She's too bright. Oh, one can overdo the merry
light-hearted role, I assure you. And then, to a new-comer at all events,
the cloak becomes apparent. But haven't you the smallest idea?"

Miss Tibbutt shook her head.

"Not the least," she announced. "I fancied one evening shortly after she
returned here, that something was a little wrong. I remember I asked her.
She talked about soap-bubbles and cobwebs but said there weren't any
left."

"Of which," smiled Trix. "Soap-bubbles or cobwebs?"

"Oh, cobwebs," said Miss Tibbutt earnestly. "Or was it both? She
said,--yes, I remember now just what she did say--she said that a pretty
bubble had burst and become a cobweb. And when I asked her if the cobweb
were bothering her, she said both it and the bubble had vanished. So, you
see!" This last on a note of triumph.

"Hmm," said Trix ruminative, dubious. "Bubbles have a way of taking up
more space than one would imagine, and their bursting sometimes leaves an
unpleasant gap. The bursting of this one has left a gap in Pia's life.
You haven't, by any chance, the remotest notion of its colour?"

"Its colour?" queried Miss Tibbutt.

Trix laughed. "Nonsense, Tibby, angel, nonsense pure and simple. But all
the same, I wish I knew for dead certain."

"So do I," said Miss Tibbutt anxiously, though she hadn't t