ey seem divided into two
big classes, kind and dirty, or clean and _mad_! When you get one who
is kind _and_ clean, you feel so grateful that you'd pay your last penny
rather than move away. Oh, how lovely! how lovely! how lovely! It's
Friday night, and I can be ill comfortably all the time till Monday
morning! Aren't we jolly well-off to have our Saturdays to ourselves?
How thankful the poor clerks and typists would be to be in our place!"

She was smiling again, enjoying the warmth of the fire, the ease of the
cushioned chair. When Mrs Rogers entered she snoodled into the folds
of a knitted shawl, and lay back placidly while the kind creature took
off her wet shoes and stockings and replaced them by a long pair of
fleecy woollen bed-socks, reaching knee high. The landlady knelt to her
task, and Sophie laid a hand on the top of starched lace and magenta
velvet, and cried, "Rise, Lady Susan Rogers! One of the truest ladies
that ever breathed..."

"How you do talk!" said the landlady, but her eyes shone. As she
expounded to her husband in the kitchen, "Miss Blake had such a way with
her. When ladies were like that you didn't care what you did, but there
was them as treated you like Kaffirs."

Tea was quite a cheerful and sociable little meal, during which no
reference was made to Sophie's ailments, but when the cups had been
replaced on the central table, Claire seated herself and said with an
air of decision--

"Now we're going to have a disagreeable conversation! I don't approve
of the way you have been going on this last month, and it's time it came
to an end. You are ill, and it's your business to take steps to get
better!"

"Oh!"

"Yes; and you are going to take them, too!"

"What am I going to do?"

"You are going to see a specialist next week."

"You surprise me!" Sophie smiled with exaggerated lightness. "What
funny things one does hear!"

"Why shouldn't you see a specialist? I defy you to give me one sensible
reason?"

"I'll do better than that. I'll give you two."

"So do, then! What are they?"

"Guineas!" said Sophie.

For a moment Claire stared blankly, then she laughed.

"Oh, I see! Yes. It is rather a haul. But it's better to harden your
heart once for all, and pay it down."

"The two guineas is only the beginning."

"The beginning of what?"

"Trouble!" said Sophie grimly. "Baths, at a guinea apiece. Massage,
half-a-guinea a time. Medicine, liniments, change of