ll the time. The soaking it got yesterday was very
bad for it. You don't see such things, but if you did you'd probably
get a tremendous shock."

"Ma'am, if you write to Paris you must give your own name, which of
course is impossible. They will send nothing to an unknown customer in
England called Neumann-Schultz."

"Oh but we'd send the money with the order. That's quite easy, isn't
it?"

"Perfectly easy," said Fritzing in an oddly exasperated voice; at once
adding, still more snappily, "Might I request your Grand Ducal
Highness to have the goodness not to put my AEschylus--a most valuable
edition--head downwards on the shelf? It is a manner of treating books
often to be observed in housemaids and similar ignorants. But you,
ma'am, have been trained by me I trust in other and more reverent ways
of handling what is left to us of the mighty spirits of the past."

"I'm sorry," said Priscilla, hastily turning the AEschylus right side
up again; and by launching forth into a long and extremely bitter
dissertation on the various ways persons of no intellectual
conscience have of ill-treating books, he got rid of some of his
agitation and fixed her attention for the time on questions less
fraught with complications than clothes from Paris.

About half-past two they were still sitting over the eggs and bread
and butter that Priscilla ordered three times a day and that Fritzing
ate with unquestioning obedience, when the Shuttleworth victoria
stopped in front of the cottage and Lady Shuttleworth got out.
Fritzing, polite man, hastened to meet her, pushing aside the footman
and offering his arm. She looked at him vaguely, and asked if his
niece were at home.

"Certainly," said Fritzing, leading her into Priscilla's parlour.
"Shall I inquire if she will receive you?"

"Do," said Lady Shuttleworth, taking no apparent notice of the odd
wording of this question. "Tussie isn't well," she said the moment
Priscilla appeared, fixing her eyes on her face but looking as though
she hardly saw her, as though she saw past her, through her, to
something beyond, while she said a lesson learned by rote.

"Isn't he? Oh I'm sorry," said Priscilla.

"He caught cold last Sunday at your treat. He oughtn't to have run
those races with the boys. He can't--stand--much."

Priscilla looked at her questioningly. The old lady's face was quite
set and calm, but there had been a queer catch in her voice at the
last words.

"Why does he do such