no, hold fast to insisting that
she must not leave the ancestral halls. That you can do dutifully
and gracefully."

Cecil knew she had been betrayed into the contrary; but they were by
this time in the High Street, bowing to others of the committee on
their way to the town-hall, a structure of parti-coloured brick in
harlequin patterns, with a peaked roof, all over little sham domes,
which went far to justify its title of the Rat-house, since nothing
larger could well use them. The facade was thus somewhat imposing;
of the rear the less said the better; and as to the interior, it was
at present one expanse of dust, impeded by scaffold-poles, and all
the windows had large blotches of paint upon them.

It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the
stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her
attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well-
experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in
keeping their plumage unsoiled. Lady Tyrrell kept on a little
peninsula of encaustic tile, Cecil hopped across bird-like and
unsoiled, Miss Slater held her carmelite high and dry, but poor Miss
Fuller's pale blue and drab, trailing at every step, became
constantly more blended!

The dust induced thirst. Lady Tyrrell lamented that the Wil'sbro'
confectioner was so far off and his ices doubtful, and Miss Slater
suggested that she had been making a temperance effort by setting up
an excellent widow in the lane that opened opposite to them in a
shop with raspberry vinegar, ginger-beer, and the like mild
compounds, and Mrs. Duncombe caught at the opportunity of exhibiting
the sparkling water of the well which supplied this same lane. The
widow lived in one of the tenements which Pettitt had renovated
under her guidance, and on a loan advanced by Cecil, and she was
proud of her work.

"Clio Tallboys would view this as a triumph," said Mrs. Duncombe,
as, standing on the steps of the town-hall, she surveyed the four
tenements at the corner of the alley. "Not a man would stir in the
business except Pettitt, who left it all to me."

"Taking example by the Professor," said Lady Tyrrell.

"It is strange," said Miss Slater, "how much illness there has been
ever since the people went into those houses. They are in my
district, you know."

"You should make them open their windows," said Mrs. Duncombe.

"They lay it on the draughts."

"And stuff up my ventilators