Superseded

g Fas

fore. After five-and-twenty years of constant attendance she had only to be away three months to be forgotten. The new staff was not greatly concerned with Miss Quincey;

as responsible for the delicate attentions she had received during her illness; Rhoda who had bought and sent off the presents from St. Sidwell's; Rhoda who had conceived that pretty little idea of flowers "with love"; and Rhoda who had inspired the affectionate messages of the staff. (

re intimate than an embarrassed smile. In this rapidly-advancing world the Mad Hatter alone remained where Miss Quincey had left her. She explained at some length how the figures twisted

m quite well now, thank you. Dr. Cautley is so very clever. Dr. Cautley has taken splendid care of me. Dr. Cautley has been so very kind and attentive, I think it would be ungrateful of me if I had not got well. Dr. Cautley-" Perhaps it was just as well for Miss Quincey that the s

sy to spare a thought for Miss Quincey. "Yes," sh

simple pride "is the arsenic. Dr

ndermine the stoutest constitution, and a little too much of it is a deadly poison and kills you. As yet Miss Quincey had only taken it in microscopic doses. Something had changed her; it may hav

licacies and shades, relying on broad telling strokes, on strong outlines and stinging contrasts. She is like a clever artist handicapped with her materials. Only a patch of grass, a few trees and the sky; but you wake one morning and the boughs are drawn black and bold against the blue; and

wers are. At this season Hunter's window blooms out in blouses of every imaginable colour and texture and form. There was one, a silk one, of so discreet and modest a mauve that you could have called it lavender. To say that it caught Miss Quincey's eye would be to wrong that maidenly garment. There was nothing bla

nd blossomed in this sinful passion for a blouse. She resisted, faltered, resisted; turned away and turned back again. The blouse sat immovable on its wooden bust, absolute in its policy of reticence. Miss Quincey had just decided that it had a thought too much mauve in it, and was most successfully routing desire by depreciation of its object when a shopman stepped on to the stage, treading airily among the gauzes and the flowers. There was no artifice about the young man; it was in the dreamiest abstrac

old it expressed its contempt for her person; its collar was stiff with an invincible repugnance. Miss Quincey had to take it in where it went out, and let it out where it went in, to pinch, pull, humour and propitiate it before it would consent to cling to her diminished figure. When all was done she wrapped it in tissue paper and hid it away in a drawer out of sight,

l's with a reserved and secret smile playing about her face; so secret and so r

was meditatin

nother. This she left open for such emendations and improvements as should occur to her in the night. Perhaps none did occur; perhaps she realized that a literary work loses it

ut Martha had seen her. She saw everything. She had seen the note open on Miss Juliana's table by the window in the bedroom when she was drawing up the blind; she had seen the silk blouse lying in its tissu

onnection there could possibly be between the three was more than Miss Juliana could have told her. Even to Mart

nothing, indeed there was nothing to be said. The cake (it was of the expensive pound variety, crowned wit

that mean

ana, m'm,

e impertinence of her own private opinion

er appeared in anything but frowsy drab or dingy grey, Miss Juliana flaunting in silk at four o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Juliana, all shining and shimmering like a silver and mauve chameleon, was a sight to take anybody's breath away. Mart

less abject than she might have been, for at the moment she was thinking of Dr. Cautley. He had actually accepted her kind invitation,

emy the cabinet, and presented herself in every possible aspect. The Old Lady's eyes lost no mo

ed to be permanently displeased)-"whatever possessed you to make such an exhibition of yourself? (And will you draw your chair back-you're incommoding the cabinet.) I never saw anything so uns

o brazen it out; to sit down and read Browning as if there

ou never could stand that shade at the best of tim

than Miss Quincey at that word. Criminal and crime, Miss Quincey and her blouse, seemed linked in an awful bond of mutual abhorrence. The blouse shivered as Miss Quincey trembled in n

n ro

ncey tur

oesn't throw up every bit of yellow in your fac

y looked in

too young; and it was brutal and violent in its youth. It was possessed by a perfect demon of juvenility; it clashed and fought with every object in the room; it made them all look

dy, "was the only one of our

sa," cried Miss Quincey

d nipped all the shape out of it to suit yourself. However you came to be so skimpy and flat-chested is a mystery to me. All the Quinceys were tall, your

d have been very becomi

"I-I thought i

surprised at you-throwing mo

s Quincey with the pathetic

e was always casting on a certain character. Tollington Moon had not managed his nieces' affairs so badly after all if one of them could afford herself extravag

money, I say you can't afford th

ncey's eyes now fell on the silk, deepe

olour," she said as she

ther woman could wear it either; certainly not Louisa; she had made it useless for Louisa by paring it down to her o

rved her for so many seasons, and she looked for peace. But that terri

s. Moon was concentrating her attention on that more

ght have pointed to a monument, "will y

likely-that Dr. Cautley will

retty plainly too, but it was too fine a thread for Miss Quincey to see. Besides she was looking at the cake and almost

tion into your head,

ritten to

ean to tell me that

-it was an answer

oking his nose in here at all hours of the day and night,

attentive, and-I thought-it was time

ttention to him. I should have thought you'd have had a little more maidenly reserve. Be

d been having it that way

at it. Why, you might just as well have ordered wedding cake at o

flighty. She herself made no attempt to express them. She sat down and gasped, clutching her Browning to give herself a sense of moral support. All the rest was intelligible

d an extra cup for Dr. Cautley, she saw Mrs. Moon looking at Martha, and Martha looking at

uch a degree that when Dr. Cautley c

because of the uncertainty of things in general and of the Old Lady's temper in particular. And then she had to stake everything on his coming; and the chances, allowing for the inevitable claims on a doctor's time, were a thousand to one against it. She had nothing to go upon but the delicate incalculable balance of events. And now, when the blue moon had risen, the impossible thing happened, and the man had come, he might just as well, in fact a great deal better, have stayed away. The whole thing was a waste and failure from beginning to end. The tea was a waste and a failure, for Martha would bring it in a q

to talk," and left half an hou

offended. Or else-he

hat w