you; I might be worse.”

“I must send you some fresh eggs. How are you off for literature?”

“In a starving condition. I’ve not seen a new book for months.”

“Oh, then we will all supply you! I notice that you take the Sussex Figaro,” [80]lifting the paper with a sudden swoop, and thereby discovering the neatly arranged rows of playing cards!

[80]

It would be difficult to say which of the two ladies looked the more taken aback and out of countenance. Miss Skuce stood for a second with her mouth half open, paper in hand. Emma became scarlet, as she hastily scrambled the cards together.

“So you play patience, I see,” said our visitor, after a pause, and with really admirable presence of mind.

“Oh, anything, everything, from ecarté to—to old maid, pour passer le temps. I hope you will have some tea. Gwen, what have we been thinking about? Come along and pour it out.”

In ten minutes’ time, Miss Skuce had nearly emptied her third cup, and, enlivened by the fragrant herb, had become [81]most talkative and confidential, and developed a truly warm interest in us and our concerns.

[81]

Emma was advised whom she was to know, and whom she must not know on any account; where she was to deal, whose fly she was to hire for parties—all was laid before her in detail. A stranger entering the room would naturally have supposed that this eager lady, who was nursing her empty teacup, was an old and intimate friend.

Finally, with lavish promises of eggs, books, and flowers, Miss Skuce, as she expressed it, “tore herself away.” She must have managed to whisper a few words on the stairs or in the passage, for when Mrs. Gabb came to remove the things, she wore an unusually benign aspect; there was no angry banging and clanging of unoffending and inanimate [82]articles. On the contrary, she poked the fire with an extravagant hand, drew the curtains noiselessly, and remarked in a surprisingly affable tone that “she had made us a nice little batter pudding,” and “that it was a wet night.”

[82]

So much for numbering a large photograph of a local magnate 

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