arried woman, with a peculiarly matronly
appearance, a good-natured love of giving advice, and with views that
obviously dated--one did not know exactly from when. If she had some of
the Victorian severities of the sixties, she had also many of the
sentimental vagaries of the eighties. The serious business of her life
was gossip. In her lighter moments she collected autographs. But her
gossip differed from that of the nervous, impatient Mrs. Wyburn in that
it was far more pompous and moral, and not nearly so spiteful and
accurate.

Miss Westbury sailed in--I need hardly say she was dressed in
heliotrope--and sat down rather seriously in a large--and the only
comfortable--armchair.

"My dear Millie, how extremely good of you to come!" exclaimed Mrs.
Wyburn.

Miss Westbury had been christened Maria, but Millie was the name which
she had chosen to be called by her friends.

"I am very pleased to come, dear Isabella. To call on you on one of your
Wednesdays is, I know, quite hopeless if one has anything to say. To
call on any one on a day at home, except as a mere matter of form, I do
not consider sensible."

"Quite so. Will you have some tea?"

Mrs. Wyburn rang the bell rather fretfully. She did not care for
Millie's made conversation, and hated her way of gaining time.

"I will have what I always have, dear Mrs. Wyburn, at five o'clock, if I
may--hot water with one teaspoonful of milk, and a saccharine tablet
which I bring with me. I am not a faddist, and I think all those sort of
fancies about what is and what is not good for one are exceedingly
foolish; but when I go in for a regime, dear, I give it a fair chance.
Otherwise there is no sense in it!"

She settled herself still more sensibly and decidedly in her chair.

"I wonder," said Mrs. Wyburn nervously--one could see she was not
listening, and thought Miss Westbury was merely drivelling on--"whether
you will come to the point at once? It would be a great comfort if you
would. I have been feeling quite anxious about your visit. I rather
foolishly took some coffee after lunch, and it kept me awake the whole
afternoon--either that, or my anxiety."

"If you take coffee after lunch," replied Miss Westbury, "you should
take it made as I do. Two teaspoonfuls of coffee in a large
breakfast-cup full of hot water, a saccharine tablet, and a teaspoonful
of condensed----"

"What was it you really heard, Millie dear, about my daughter-in-law?"
interrupted Mrs. Wyb