ckstead which sounds ideal, Vava. Listen: "Four
bedrooms, three reception-rooms, kitchen, bath (h. and c.), and garden
with fruit-trees--forty pounds, but perhaps less to a good tenant, as
the landlord lives next door and is very particular about his
neighbours, and has refused good 'lets' already,"' Stella read out.

She was the least busy of the four, and the only one with capital, so it
had been decided that she should do the correspondence, and by Mr.
Stacey's advice she was to take the house in her own name, as 'you can
then get rid of your new acquaintances if you wish, and you will be
responsible for the rent, or rather I will, which your landlord will
prefer, as I hold your securities.'

'Do you know, Stella, I have come to the conclusion that people never do
what you expect them to do; anyway, you and Mr. Stacey don't,' announced
Vava when she heard Mr. Stacey's advice.

'I don't? What have I done or not done that you expected?' said Stella,
amused at Vava's moralising, though she understood and agreed with her
surprise at Mr. Stacey's ready approval of their taking a small house,
instead of remaining in lodgings; it did not seem like his usual caution
nor the advice he gave them before they left Lomore.

'You don't disapprove of Doreen, though she is not a lady and a little
rough sometimes and loud in her way of speaking in the street, so that I
feel ashamed at the attention she attracts, though I like her most
awfully; and yet you don't like the Montague Joneses, who behave quite
like a lady and gentleman; and now Mr. Stacey, who was so horrid,
telling us we must go into poky lodgings and be saving, quite approves
of our taking a house with some people we don't know very well! It's
rather funny of him, but I believe I know the reason,' announced Vava,
nodding her head.

Stella thought she knew too, but her guess was a different one to
Vava's. She imagined that her remarks about her younger sister's
flagging health and spirits influenced the old lawyer, as well as the
fact at which he hinted that their income would be a little larger than
he anticipated, thanks to the sum paid for the hire of their furniture
and a rise in some shares. Whereas Vava had an idea that the Montague
Joneses were somehow at the bottom of his change of front; but neither
imparted her opinion to the other, and Stella did not ask Vava for hers,
because she was occupied with thoughts of the new scheme.

The Montague Joneses had cal