The Westcotes

e will be gett

lit the fire in the massive Georgian grate. These occasions found the service in the Town House short

Mudge?" (Mudge was t

to Mudge, or of Mudge getting to us. Why,

the room nipping, as Dorothea found whe

of betwixt and between feeling-between being at home and

w with the milk, and he says that a score of them couldn't get beds in the town for love or money. The rest kept

e see-yes, just eighteen. I remember, because it was my second ball. But the

rm. There's that old Admiral, for one. I'm sure he never ought to be out of bed, with his rheumatics. It's enough to

and laughed. She was Somerset-born h

s Mr. En

Mrs. Morrish to heat his shaving water, and had a cup of coffee in his room. He and Mr. Narcissus have gone out to see the roll called, and get the volunteers and

inders. She had given up asking with whom her mistress had danced; but Dorothea usu

ed,

but not uncomfortably. I danc

but her face was turned to the f

egg in this weather, to have it snowed up the next moment. 'Not that I blame mun,' she says, 'for I wouldn't do it

in bed and strangely reluctant to rise a

uld paint it out at the first opportunity. And Dorothea had forgiven him. She herself had a great capacity for gratitude, and understood the feeling far too thoroughly to believe for an instant that M. Raoul could be mightily grateful for anything she had said or done. No; whatever the feeling which impels a young gentleman to secrete some little private reminder of its object, it is not gra

were clearing the pavement with shovels and brushes, laughing and chattering all the while, and breaking off to pelt each other with snowballs. She had discussed these poor fellows with M. Raoul last night. Could she not in some way add to

essly from the window to the wardrobe in which Polly had folded and laid away her last night's finery, and from the wardrobe back to a long sofa at the bed's foot. And now she found herself

* *

m: for banking (as the Westcote clients were reminded by several sporting prints and a bust of the Medicean Venus) was in those days of scarce money a branch of ph

," Dorothea

ain Fioupi hanged himself from Mary Odling's bacon-rack, two years ago

eman! Why d

ss. But they said i

ed, and she had to pour out tea for them. Narcissus took his seat at once. Endymion stood stamping his feet and warming his hands by the fire. He ben

able to depart before noon, though I won't answer for the road Yeovil Way. One carrier-Allworthy-has come through to the bridge, but says he passed S

treat for them,"

brows w

sts, do

e fire and pick

laug

listening to their voices. Just n

up, set them in place, and faced the room again with a

. "I have a small plan I want your permission for, and your hel

my business," snapped Endymion, wh

ge Room- and all to show their gratitude? But it appears the worst part of captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the

and stood astraddle, "I have not often to request you, to mind your

a pro

d Sunday in playing chess, draughts, cards, dominoes; practices which I connive at, only insisting that they are kept out of sight, but

he least respectable fall in with this. The res

t over-tire you? You are certainly dis

ing his toast carefully, "you might at

if she has been commit

ght to know

ays-they are scrupulous in keeping their parole. And, once in a way, we might entertain them at Bayfield-late in the afternoon, when you have finished your Sunday nap. Narcissus might show them the pavement and tell them about Vespasian-not a regula

itons do not usually allow names to disguise facts. A concert-call it even a 'sacred' concert-in the Orange Room, amid those distinctly-ah-pagan adornments! I can scarcely even term it the thin end of the wedge, so clearly can I see it paving the way for other questionable indulgences. I don't d

rand. As she closed the door Nar

fiddlestic

eg your

f seating himself at t

"You needn't have snapped Dorothea's head off

ert, for

cred music irreverent b

t see why, as intellige

ing. His career in many

ican

smiled at

ll talk about it l

foibles amused him, but for whose slow jud

* *

Dorothea would pen the invitations three weeks ahead, Endymion devote an hour to selecting his guests, and Narcissus spend a morning in the Bayfield cellar, which he supervised and in which he took a just pride. And so well was this inelasticity recogni

d the pavement-found herself surrounded by a crew humorously apologetic for their toilettes, profoundly envious of her better luck, but on ex

of it all was that M.

on's

danced the "Soldier's Joy" with Dorothea,

Dorothea was not

not see

ran from lodging to lodging, turning the occupants out of their beds and routing about

schoolboy. "And then he came back,

y Bateson's niece, and the

mbeau, jaded and unshaven, ap

peared, we held our own

nspiracy can no l

iment for me last

have a genuine one for you to-day-I compliment your heart. M. Raoul has

ate encounter and (as she believed) defeat. "By all accounts, M.

man chuckled a

een performed this season at Bath. Well, it appears that M. Raoul had also seen it a-valtz they called it, or some such name. Whereupon nothing would do but they must dance it together. Such a dance, Mademoiselle! Roll, roll-round and round- roll, roll-but perpendicularly, you understand.

glanced towa

showing it to us the other day, or I should have recognised it at

third nymph. But the blood which had left Dorothea's face ru

up, but M. Raoul l

ok hands and were rolled away-the elder glum, their juniors in boisterous spirits. As each carriage passed the br