f 'busses between
Chelsea and Hoxton.

Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh.

"I must order the motor. The dear thing needn't have come your very
first night, need she? It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was
engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even! Isn't it odd
to think of that?" Her voice was full of feeling.

"And you must be longing to go to your room. You won't have to dine with
Tim, because he is dining at his club. Promise me that you won't let Tim
bore you: he likes horrid fat people, so I don't think he will; and are
you sure you have got everything you want?"

Molly's impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks
later in a letter to Miss Carew.

"MY DEAR CAREY,--

"I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay
three months.

"I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life
fairly quickly and getting to know a number of people. But I am
not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while,
though we are too wise to decide in a hurry. There are great
attractions: the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are
absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in
taste is the husband. But she sees him very little, and I hardly
exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us
is that of a busy father towards his nursery. But I rather suspect
that he gets his own way when he chooses. The servants work hard,
and, I believe, honestly like her. The clergyman of the parish, a
really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband's
doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses. I
believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety
of the men who like her. There are just one or two people who pose
her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one. He snubs her, and so she makes
up to him hard. I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with
Sir Edmund. He is of a different school from most of the men I have
seen. He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly,
rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the
time. I shock people here if I simply say I don't like any one. If
you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by
saying--'Of course, he means awfully well,' and after that you may
imply that he is the