dy. Houses always
go mouldy, shut up in summer. And you can't leave it to your servants;
_I_ know the baggages; no conscience--no conscience; they'll ask their
entire families to come and stop with them _en bloc_, and turn your
place into a perfect piggery. Why, when I went away from my house in
town one autumn, didn't I leave a policeman and his wife in charge--a
most respectable man--only he happened to be an Irishman. And what was
the consequence? My dear, I assure you, I came back unexpectedly from
poor dear Kynaston's one day--at a moment's notice--having quarrelled
with him over Home Rule or Education or something--poor dear Kynaston's
what they call a Liberal, I believe--got at by that man Rosebery--and
there didn't I find all the O'Flanagans, and O'Flahertys, and O'Flynns
in the neighbourhood camping out in my drawing-room; with a strong
detachment of O'Donohues, and O'Dohertys, and O'Driscolls lying around
loose in possession of the library? Never leave a house to the servants,
my dear! It's positively suicidal. Put in a responsible caretaker of
whom you know something--like Lois here, for instance.'

'Lois!' Mrs. Evelegh echoed. 'Dear me, that's just the very thing. What
a capital idea! I never thought of Lois! She and Elsie might stop on
here, with Ursula and the gardener.'

I protested that if we did it was our clear duty to pay a small rent;
but Mrs. Evelegh brushed that aside. 'You've robbed yourselves over the
bicycle,' she insisted, 'and I'm delighted to let you have it. It's I
who ought to pay, for you'll keep the house dry for me.'

I remembered Mr. Hitchcock--'Mutual advantage: benefits you, benefits
me'--and made no bones about it. So in the end Mrs. Evelegh set off for
England with Cecile, leaving Elsie and me in charge of Ursula, the
gardener, and the _chalet_.

As for Lady Georgina, having by this time completed her 'cure' at
Schlangenbad (complexion as usual; no guinea yellower), she telegraphed
for Gretchen--'I can't do without the idiot'--and hung round Lucerne,
apparently for no other purpose but to send people up the Bruenig on the
hunt for our wonderful new machines, and so put money in our pockets.
She was much amused when I told her that Aunt Susan (who lived, you will
remember, in respectable indigence at Blackheath) had written to
expostulate with me on my 'unladylike' conduct in becoming a bicycle
commission agent. 'Unladylike!--the Cantankerous Old Lady exclaimed,
with warmth. 'Wha