shouldn't have a house in the country and also a
flat in town, provided we all stick together and contribute. Though of
course--Oh, how one does maunder on and to think, to think of the people
who are really poor. How do they live? Not to move about the world would
kill me."

As she spoke, the door was flung open, and Helen burst in in a state of
extreme excitement.

"Oh, my dears, what do you think? You'll never guess. A woman's been
here asking me for her husband. Her WHAT?" (Helen was fond of supplying
her own surprise.) "Yes, for her husband, and it really is so."

"Not anything to do with Bracknell?" cried Margaret, who had lately
taken on an unemployed of that name to clean the knives and boots.

"I offered Bracknell, and he was rejected. So was Tibby. (Cheer up,
Tibby!) It's no one we know. I said, 'Hunt, my good woman; have a good
look round, hunt under the tables, poke up the chimney, shake out the
antimacassars. Husband? husband?' Oh, and she so magnificently dressed
and tinkling like a chandelier."

"Now, Helen, what did really happen?"

"What I say. I was, as it were, orating my speech. Annie opens the door
like a fool, and shows a female straight in on me, with my mouth open.
Then we began--very civilly. 'I want my husband, what I have reason to
believe is here.' No--how unjust one is. She said 'whom,' not 'what.'
She got it perfectly. So I said, 'Name, please?' and she said, 'Lan,
Miss,' and there we were.

"Lan?"

"Lan or Len. We were not nice about our vowels. Lanoline."

"But what an extraordinary--"

"I said, 'My good Mrs. Lanoline, we have some grave misunderstanding
here. Beautiful as I am, my modesty is even more remarkable than my
beauty, and never, never has Mr. Lanoline rested his eyes on mine.'"

"I hope you were pleased," said Tibby.

"Of course," Helen squeaked. "A perfectly delightful experience.
Oh, Mrs. Lanoline's a dear--she asked for a husband as if he were
an umbrella. She mislaid him Saturday afternoon--and for a long time
suffered no inconvenience. But all night, and all this morning her
apprehensions grew. Breakfast didn't seem the same--no, no more did
lunch, and so she strolled up to 2 Wickham Place as being the most
likely place for the missing article."

"But how on earth--"

"Don't begin how on earthing. 'I know what I know,' she kept repeating,
not uncivilly, but with extreme gloom. In vain I asked her what she did
know. Some knew what others knew, and others