ong and short of it, ma'am."

"It doesn't seem so very dreadful." Mrs Bosenna's smile was sweetly
reassuring. "You _both_ wrote, when it was only necessary for one to
write?"

"That's what I kept tellin' him, ma'am," put in 'Bias stoutly. "But he
would put his oar in."

"Well, well. . . You both wished to give me pleasure, and each wrote
without the other's knowledge--"

"No, we didn't," interrupted 'Bias again.

"Anyway," she harked back with a patient little sigh, "you had both
planned your invitation to give me pleasure; and since it was the
same--?" She paused on a note of interrogation.

"You might call it the same, ma'am--after a fashion," assented Cai.

She laughed. "Do you know," she said, "I forgot for a moment what
friends you are; and it _did_ cross my mind that maybe there were two
invitations, and they clashed."

"But they do, ma'am!" groaned Cai.

"Eh? Yet you said just now. . . . So there _are_ two, after all!"

"It's--it's this way, ma'am: the letters are the same, but the
invitation as you call it--" Here Cai paused and cast an irritable
glance in the direction of Dinah, who had stepped to the door of the
oven to conceal her mirth. If the woman would but go he might be able
to explain. "But the invitation don't apply similarly, not in both
cases."

"That's queer, isn't it?" commented Mrs Bosenna. "And, supposin' I
accept, to which of you must I write?"

"Me," said 'Bias with great promptitude.

"Not at all." Cai turned in wrath on his friend.

"I do think you might help, instead of standin' there and--"

"Can't I accept both?" suggested Mrs Bosenna sweetly.

"No, you certainly can't, ma'am. . . . And since the letters seemin'ly
haven't reached you yet, we'd both of us take it as a favour if you'd hand
'em back to us without lookin' inside 'em. We--we want to try again,
and send something calkilated to please you better. 'Tis a queer
request, I'll grant you."

"It is," she agreed, cutting him short. "But what's the matter with the
letters? Did you put any bad language into them by any chance?"

"Ma'am!" exclaimed Cai.

"Bad language?" protested 'Bias. "Why, to begin with, ma'am, I never
use it. The language is too good, in a way, an' that's our trouble;
only Cai, here, won't out with it, but keeps beatin' about the bush.
You see, we went to Mr Benny for it."

"You went to Mr Benny?" she echoed as he hesitated. "For what, pray?"

"For the letters, ma'am. Unbeknow