always
gave me my way, poor man, so I fixed on Beatrice. I said it would fit
all round, and it did. Shut that window, will you, Bee?--the wind is
very sharp for the time of year. You don't mind my calling you Bee now
and then--even if it doesn't seem quite to fit?" continued Mrs.
Meadowsweet.

"No, mother, of course not. Call me anything in the world you fancy.
What's in a name?"

"Don't say that, Trixie, there's a great deal in a name."

"Well, I get confused with mine now and then. Mother, I just came in to
kiss you and run away again. Alice Bell and I are going to the lecture
at the Town Hall. It begins at five, and it's half-past four now.
Good-bye, I shall be home to supper."

"One moment, Bee, I am really pleased that your fine friend's mother has
chosen to call at last."

Beatrice frowned.

"Catherine is not my fine friend," she said.

"Well, your _friend_, then, dearie. I am glad your friend's mother
has called."

"I am not--that is, I am absolutely indifferent. Now, I really must run
away. Good-bye until you see me again."

She tripped out of the room as lightly and carelessly as she had entered
it, and Mrs. Meadowsweet sat on by the window which looked into the
garden.

Mrs. Meadowsweet had the smoothest and most tranquil of faces. She had
taken as her favorite motto in life, that somehow, if you only allowed
them, things did fit all round. Each event in her own career, to use her
special phraseology "fitted." As her husband had to die, he passed away
from this life at the most fitting moment. As Providence had blessed her
with only one child, a daughter was surely the most fitting companion
for a widowed mother. The house Mrs. Meadowsweet lived in fitted her
requirements to perfection. In short, she was fat and comfortable, both
in mind and body; she never fretted, she never worried; she was not
rasping and disagreeable; she was not fault-finding. If her nature
lacked depth, it certainly did not lack affection, generosity, and a
true spirit of kindliness. If she were a little too well pleased with
herself, she was also well pleased with her neighbors. She was not
especially appreciated, for she was considered prosy and commonplace.
Prosy she undoubtedly was, but not commonplace, for invariable
contentment and unbounded good-nature are more and more difficult to
find in this censorious world.

Mrs. Meadowsweet now smiled gently to herself.

"However Beatrice may take it, I _am_ glad Mrs. Bert