es.

"Didn't you know that there are two kinds of letters: those you want
and those that want something?" asked Miss Spraggs, in a way that
showed she was conscious of saying a smart thing.

"I can hardly believe human nature to be so depraved as you would make
it out to be, Eva," remarked Mrs Devitt, who disliked the fact of her
unmarried sister possessing sharper wits than her own.

"Oh! I say, is that your own?" guffawed Devitt from his place on the
hearthrug.

"Why shouldn't it be?" asked Miss Spraggs demurely.

"Anyway," continued Mrs Devitt impatiently, "she wishes to know if I am
in want of a companion, or anything of that sort, as she has a teacher
she is unable to keep owing to her school having fallen on bad times."

"Then she's young!" cried Lowther, who was lolling near the window.

"'Her name is Mavis Keeves; she is the only daughter of the late
Colonel Keeves, who, I believe, before he was overtaken by misfortune,
occupied a position of some importance in the vicinity of Melkbridge,'"
read Mrs Devitt from Miss Annie Mee's letter.

"Keeves! Keeves!" echoed her husband.

"Do you remember him?" asked his wife.

"Of course," he replied. "He was a M.F.H. and knew everyone" (everyone
was here synonymous with the elect the Devitts were pining to meet on
equal terms). "His was Sir Henry Ockendon's place."

The prospects of Mavis Keeves securing employment with the Devitts had,
suddenly, increased.

"How was it he came 'down'?" asked the agreeable rattle, keenly
interested in anything having to do with the local aristocracy, past or
present.

"The old story: speculatin' solicitors," replied Montague, who made a
point of dropping his "g's." "One week saw him reduced from money to
nixes."

Mrs Devitt raised her eyebrows.

"I mean nothin'," corrected Devitt.

"How very distressing!" remarked Victoria in her exquisitely modulated
voice. "We should try and do something for her."

"We will," said her father.

"We certainly owe a duty to those who were once our neighbours,"
assented Miss Spraggs.

"Do you remember her?" asked Mrs Devitt of her husband.

"Of course I do, now I come to think of it," he replied.

"What was she like?"

He paused for a moment or two before replying.

"She'd reddy sort of hair and queer eyes. She was a fine little girl,
but a fearful tomboy," said Devitt.

"Pretty, then!" exclaimed Mrs Devitt, as she glanced apprehensively at
her step-daughter.

"She was then.