and her bodice--rather low. The vicar's
nephew sniggered, and Mrs Gray gave him a reproachful glance; all the
other Blackstable people looked pained; Miss Reed blushed. But as Daisy
waved her hand and gave a kick, the audience broke out into prolonged
applause; Tercanbury people have no moral sense, although Tercanbury is
a cathedral city.

Daisy began to sing,--

_I'm a jolly sort of boy, tol, lol,_
_And I don't care a damn who knows it._
_I'm fond of every joy, tol, lol,_
_As you may very well suppose it._
_Tol, lol, lol,_
_Tol, lol, lol._

Then the audience, the audience of a cathedral city, as Mr Gray said,
took up the refrain,--

_Tol, lol, lol,_
_Tol, lol, lol._

However, the piece went on to the bitter end, and Dick Whittington
appeared in many different costumes and sang many songs, and kicked many
kicks, till he was finally made Lord Mayor--in tights.

Ah, it was an evening of bitter humiliation for Blackstable people. Some
of them, as Miss Reed said, behaved scandalously; they really appeared
to enjoy it. And even George laughed at some of the jokes the cat made,
though his wife and his mother sternly reproved him.

'I'm ashamed of you, George, laughing at such a time!' they said.

Afterwards the Grays and Miss Reed got into the same railway carriage
with the Griffiths.

'Well, Mrs Griffith,' said the vicar's wife, 'what do you think of your
daughter now?'

'Mrs Gray,' replied Mrs Griffith, solemnly, 'I haven't got a daughter.'

'That's a very proper spirit in which to look at it,' answered the
lady.... 'She was simply covered with diamonds.'

'They must be worth a fortune,' said Miss Reed.

'Oh, I daresay they're not real,' said Mrs Gray; 'at that distance and
with the lime-light, you know, it's very difficult to tell.'

'I'm sorry to say,' said Mrs Griffith, with some asperity, feeling the
doubt almost an affront to her--'I'm sorry to say that I _know_ they're
real.'

The ladies coughed discreetly, scenting a little scandalous mystery
which they must get out of Mrs Griffith at another opportunity.

'My nephew James says she earns at least thirty or forty pounds a week.'

Miss Reed sighed at the thought of such depravity.

'It's very sad,' she remarked, 'to think of such things happening to a
fellow-creature.'...

* * * * *

'But what I can't understand,' said Mrs Gray, next morning, at the