r-closet, and draw a curtain when the candles are lighted, and with
the looking-glass behind it looks quite pretty. I wish we might have
a powder-closet in our next house. Of course, the tree has to be very
small, and the presents don't hang on it. No; the presents reside in a
sort of rocky landscape made of crumpled brown paper."

"You spoke of your 'next house,' Miss Schlegel. Then are you leaving
Wickham Place?"

"Yes, in two or three years, when the lease expires. We must."

"Have you been there long?"

"All our lives."

"You will be very sorry to leave it."

"I suppose so. We scarcely realise it yet. My father--" She broke off,
for they had reached the stationery department of the Haymarket Stores,
and Mrs. Wilcox wanted to order some private greeting cards.

"If possible, something distinctive," she sighed. At the counter
she found a friend, bent on the same errand, and conversed with
her insipidly, wasting much time. "My husband and our daughter are
motoring." "Bertha, too? Oh, fancy, what a coincidence!"

Margaret, though not practical, could shine in such company as this.
While they talked, she went through a volume of specimen cards,
and submitted one for Mrs. Wilcox's inspection. Mrs. Wilcox was
delighted--so original, words so sweet; she would order a hundred
like that, and could never be sufficiently grateful. Then, just as the
assistant was booking the order, she said: "Do you know, I'll wait. On
second thoughts, I'll wait. There's plenty of time still, isn't there,
and I shall be able to get Evie's opinion."

They returned to the carriage by devious paths; when they were in, she
said, "But couldn't you get it renewed?"

"I beg your pardon?" asked Margaret.

"The lease, I mean."

"Oh, the lease! Have you been thinking of that all the time? How very
kind of you!"

"Surely something could be done."

"No; values have risen too enormously. They mean to pull down Wickham
Place, and build flats like yours."

"But how horrible!"

"Landlords are horrible."

Then she said vehemently: "It is monstrous, Miss Schlegel; it isn't
right. I had no idea that this was hanging over you. I do pity you from
the bottom of my heart. To be parted from your house, your father's
house--it oughtn't to be allowed. It is worse than dying. I would rather
die than--Oh, poor girls! Can what they call civilisation be right, if
people mayn't die in the room where they were born? My dear, I am so
sorry."

Margaret d