society and the domestic virtues. The other guest, Mrs. Murch by name,
proclaimed herself, at a glance, of less prosperous condition, though
no less sumptuously arrayed. Her face had a hungry, spiteful, leering
expression; she spoke in a shrill, peevish tone, and wriggled nervously
on her chair. In eleven years of married life, Mrs. Murch had borne six
children, all of whom died before they were six months old. She lived
apart from her husband, who had something to do with the manufacture of
an Infants' Food.

Fanny was requested to sing. She sat down at the piano, rattled a
prelude, and gave forth an echo of the music-halls:

'_It's all up with poor Tommy now. I shall never more be happy, I vow.
It's just a week to-day Since my Sairey went away, And it's all up with
poor Tommy now_.'

Mrs. Middlemist, who prided herself upon serious vocal powers, remarked
that comic singing should be confined to men.

'You haven't a bad voice, my dear, if you would only take pains with it.
Now sing us "For Ever and for Ever."'

This song being the speaker's peculiar glory, she was of course
requested to sing it herself, and, after entreaty, consented. Her eyes
turned upward, her fat figure rolling from side to side, her mouth very
wide open, Mrs. Middlemist did full justice to the erotic passion of
this great lyric:

'_Perchawnce if we 'ad never met, We 'ad been spared this mad regret,
This hendless striving to forget--For hever--hand--for he-e-e-ver!_'

Mrs. Murch let her head droop sentimentally. Horace glanced at Fanny,
who, however, seemed absorbed in reflections as unsentimental as could
be.

In the meanwhile, on a garden seat under the calm but misty sky, sat
Luckworth Crewe and Beatrice French. Crewe smoked a cigar placidly;
Beatrice was laying before him the suggestion of her great commercial
scheme, already confided to Fanny.

'How does it strike you?' she asked at length.

'Not bad, old chap. There's something in it, if you're clever enough to
carry it through. And I shouldn't wonder if you are.' 'Will you help to
set it going?'

'Can't help with money,' Crewe replied.

'Very well; will you help in other ways? Practical hints, and so on?'

'Of course I will. Always ready to encourage merit in the money-making
line. What capital are you prepared to put into it?'

'Not much. The public must supply the capital.'

'A sound principle,' Crewe laughed. 'But I shouldn't go on the old
lines. You didn't think of sta