han one, and, seeing that
she received no wages and was incurably conscientious, Mrs. Lawrence
found the arrangement eminently satisfactory. Possibly Miss Bunting
herself regarded the matter with somewhat less enthusiasm, but she was a
plucky little person and made no complaint. As she wrote to her invalid
mother, shortly after taking up her duties at Brutton Square: "After all,
dearest of little mothers, I have a roof over my head and food to eat,
and I'm not costing you anything except a few pounds for my clothes. And
perhaps when I leave here, if Mrs. Lawrence gives me a good reference, I
shall be able to get a situation with a salary attached to it."

So Miss Bunting stuck to her guns and spent her days in supplementing the
deficiencies of careless servants, smoothing the path of the boarders,
and generally enabling Mrs. Lawrence to devote much more time to what she
termed her "social life" than would otherwise have been the case.

The boarders usually numbered anything from twelve to fifteen--all of the
gentler sex--and were composed chiefly of students at one or other of the
London schools of art or music, together with a sprinkling of visiting
teachers of various kinds, and one or two young professional musicians
whose earnings did not yet warrant their launching out into the
independence of flat life. This meant that three times a year, when the
schools closed for their regular vacations, a general exodus took place
from 24 Brutton Square, and Mrs. Lawrence was happily enabled to go away
and visit her friends, leaving the conscientious Miss Bunting to look
after the reduced establishment and cater for the one or two remaining
boarders who were not released by regular holidays. It was an admirable
arrangement, profitable without being too exigeant.

At the end of each vacation Mrs. Lawrence always summoned Miss Bunting to
her presence and ran through the list of boarders for the coming term,
noting their various requirements. She was thus occupied one afternoon
towards the end of April. The spring sunshine poured in through the
windows, lending an added cheerfulness of aspect to the rooms of the tall
London house that made them appear worth quite five shillings a week more
than was actually charged for them, and Mrs. Lawrence smiled, well
satisfied.

She was a handsome woman, still in the early forties, and the word
"stylish" inevitably leaped to one's mind at the sight of her full,
well-corseted figure