s effect on the chill, unfrequented
drawing-room, reducing it instantly to a condition of paltry shabbiness.

The kitchen door was still shut. Yes, all the squalor of the business of
domesticity must be hidden from this splendid being! Hilda went as a
criminal into the kitchen. Mrs. Lessways with violent movements
signalled her to close the door before speaking. Florrie gazed
spellbound upwards at both of them. The household was in a high fever.

"You don't mean to tell me that's Mr. Cannon!" Mrs. Lessways excitedly
whispered.

"Do--do--you know him?" Hilda faltered.

"Do I know him!... What does he want?"

"He wants to see you."

"What about?"

"I suppose it's about property or something," Hilda replied, blushing.
Never had she felt so abject in front of her mother.

Mrs. Lessways rapidly unpinned the flannel petticoat and then threw it,
with a desperate gesture of sacrifice, on to the deal table. The
situation had to be met. The resplendent male awaited her in the
death-cold room. The resplendent male had his overcoat, but she,
suffering, must face the rigour and the risk unprotected. No matter if
she caught bronchitis! The thing had to be done. Even Hilda did not
think of accusing her mother of folly. Mrs. Lessways having patted her
hair, emptied several handkerchiefs from the twin pockets of her
embroidered black apron, and, snatching at the clean handkerchief
furnished by Hilda, departed to her fate. She was certainly startled and
puzzled, but she was not a whit intimidated, and the perception of this
fact inspired Hilda with a new, reluctant respect for her mother.

Hilda, from the kitchen, heard the greetings in the drawing-room, and
then the reverberations of the sufferer's nose. She desired to go into
the drawing-room. Her mother probably expected her to go in. But she
dared not. She was afraid.

"I was wondering," said the voice of Mr. Cannon, "whether you've ever
thought of selling your Calder Street property, Mrs. Lessways." And then
the drawing-room door was closed, and the ticking of the grandfather's
clock resumed possession of the lobby.

CHAPTER V
MRS. LESSWAYS' SHREWDNESS

I

Waiting irresolute in the kitchen doorway, Hilda passed the most
thrillingly agreeable moments that destiny had ever vouchsafed to her.
She dwelt on the mysterious, attractive quality of Mr. Cannon's
voice,--she was sure that, though in speaking to her mother he was
softly persuasive, he had used to herse