little beauty-spot on her conscience which she thought was a stain.

II A HYPOTHETICAL CASE

Carrie and I were placidly surveying, from either end of my little dining-table, the creditable wreck we had made of a rather neat little dinner. Carrie never disdains this hour of the animal, at whatever table fortune shall place her; and when she does me the honour to dine with me, she generally pays me the compliment of evident enjoyment. It is a feature I admire in her.

I was making leisurely coffee arrangements with my latest bachelor acquisition, a pretty little silver and spirit affair, that did not necessitate rising from a comfortable seat; while my sister purred in soft content. I moved the shaded lamp aside to see her better—Carrie is a very presentable young woman; I thought her arms decidedly pretty.

“I think, Rol,” she said, as I looked carefully to the coffee, “I think—we will not grace the theatre this evening. It’s such a wet night, and I’m so comfy here.”

I could hear the rain without getting up. It was a wet night; and she did look comfy.

“Very well, my dear sister,” I replied. “As you please. It will save me a sovereign, unless you succeed in coaxing it out of me during the evening, which I have no doubt is your real motive.”

“No, Rol, really I don’t want——”

“Not enough, eh? Haven’t got it, my dear—this is good coffee, Caroline,—I’m really as poor as Hooley. There, that’s right. Kümmel avec, n’est ce pas, my dear?”

“Please. No, Rol, we’ll sit here and be nice all the evening. I’ll bring my writing in—may I?”

I was only half convinced it wasn’t money; she was after something. Carrie’s writing is her one affectation, with which exception she is as sane as would be expected of my sister.

I believe it was a modern comedy which was then occupying the years of her youth, and whose production was to be the crown of her old age. She worked at it intermittently, that is to say, when there were no calls to receive or to be made, when she could find nobody to take her to a theatre or a garden-party, when there were no women to gossip with, or men to fascinate—whenever, in short, she felt dull. But of late she had seemed to recover interest in it—had recast it, she said.

“Bring it in, by 

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