x o'clock Mary Edwards, the hired waitress, would arrive; a young
person who, for a consideration of five shillings, officiated at every
dinner party in the township. No bellringer had greater facilities for
advertisement than Mary Edwards. "She'd tell them the style they did
things up at Beverleys'!"

It was only after she was dressed for the evening that Grizel entered
the dining-room to survey the completed table, while Parsons and Mary
Edwards stood at attention by the sideboard. She wore a wonderful gown
of a deep purple _crepe_, encrusted with heavy gold embroideries. A
diamond aigrette sparkled on her head, but her beautiful white throat
was bare of ornaments. She looked young and radiant and exquisite, and
to both black-robed, white-aproned onlookers came a spasm of an old
regret. The feminine in them revolted at the chasm between the
classes... "Oh, to be a lady, and look like that!"

"Quite nice!" cried Grizel graciously. "You've done the flowers
beautifully, Parsons. Is this Edwards? How d'you do, Edwards! Sure
you have everything you want? Enough spoons, and forks, and things like
that? That's all right! Then we'll just go straight on, you know. No
waiting between the courses."

"Yes, ma'm. No, ma'm," said Edwards firmly.

Parsons thought of the pandemonium now reigning in the kitchen, and
remained discreetly dumb. Grizel gave another nod of approval and
turned towards the door.

And then, at that very moment--_something happened_!

For the life of her during those first reeling seconds Grizel could not
have told what it was. There was a creeping, crawling sound, coming
from above, and mysteriously growing in force. Something was going to
happen: in another second something _was_ happening! It was a dream, a
nightmare, a hallucination. The clearly lighted room was suddenly
filled with dust, with smoke, with floating particles of white. Down,
down, they fell, thicker and thicker, in a solid, snow-like mass,
covering the table, covering the carpet, scattering a powdery foam to
right and to left. With more or less force certain particles fell on
her own head, her own shoulders; she gasped for breath; felt on her
tongue a strange dry taste and shuddered in disgust. Across a space of
whirling dust clouds Parsons's face and Mary Edwards's confronted her,
white as two clowns. Grizel shrieked, and still shrieking fled into the
hall.

Doors opened, voices called. At the end of the pa