trifling to engage her attention, and her mind, empty of so
much, was a veritable storehouse for inconvenient numbers and dates.
When the doctor's chimney went on fire, she was able to declare that to
her certain knowledge the sweep had not been on duty in that house since
the third of March, the day of the blizzard, when Mrs Jones wanted him
at the same time, because the weight of snow made her soot fall. The
doctor's wife had plainly been guilty of the folly of trying to save
two-and-six. She knew to an hour the age of every one of the younger
generations, and laboriously corrected lapses of memory on the part of
relations or parents. It was impossible for one of her acquaintances to
resurrect so much as a buckle without her instant and cordial
recognition. "And the paste buckle that you had on your purple silk all
those years ago--how well it comes in! `Keep a thing a dozen years, and
it comes into fashion again,' as my old mother used to say."

She remembered the Vicar's sermons when he preached them after a lapse
of years, and the good man chid himself because the fact brought
annoyance, rather than gratification. Not for the world would he have
put it into words, but deep in his heart lay the thought that it was
useless to remember precepts, which were not put into practice.

Within her own home Mrs Mallison's curiosity reached its acutest pitch,
so that it became sheer torture to her to be shut out from even the
smallest happening. To overhear tags of conversation was insufferable,
unless she were instantly supplied with the context. Thus to come into
a room and hear a daughter say, "I always thought so," was to know no
peace until she had been enlightened as to the context of the statement.
"What have you always thought, Teresa? Teresa, _what_ do you always
think?"

"Nothing, mother."

"My dear! Nonsense. I heard you. As I opened the door I distinctly
heard you say so. What were you talking about?"

"Nothing, mother. Nothing worth repeating, at any rate. You wouldn't
be interested."

"My dear, I am always interested. How could I not be interested in my
children's thoughts? Wait till you are a mother yourself... You can't
possibly have forgotten in this short time. What do you always think?"

Then Teresa would set her lips and look obstinate, and Mary would come
to the rescue.

"Teresa said that she always thought silk wore better than satin."

There was a ferocious patience in the to