ed to resent his superintendence.

"What have you been doing all day?" he asked. "You haven't given
Phoebe a look in."

"I went to Golfney Place this afternoon," was the answer.

"Golfney Place----"

"To renew my acquaintance with Bridget," said Carrissima.

"Quite unnecessary!" retorted Lawrence.

"Far better if you had stayed away."

"Why?" demanded Carrissima.

"Phoebe suggested going," said Lawrence; "but I wouldn't allow it for a
moment."

"It's certain," cried Carrissima, "that she is a standing example of
the way not to treat a husband. How ridiculous to form a prejudice
against any one you have never even seen."

"If she had been the sort of woman I should like my wife to call upon,"
said Lawrence, "she wouldn't have allowed Mark to see her so often. A
woman who lives alone! Why on earth couldn't you leave her to stew in
her own juice? I don't wish to see my brother-in-law make an idiot of
himself."

"Anyhow," returned Carrissima, "it can't have been Mark's account that
set you against her."

"Oh, of course," exclaimed Lawrence, "Mark would swallow anything."

"It is his business in life," said Carrissima, with a laugh, "to make
other people swallow things, isn't it, Lawrence?"

He went away dissatisfied, and the following Monday afternoon Bridget
Rosser paid her first visit to Number 13, Grandison Square. Although
her movements were even and unhurried, her appearance in her
out-of-door garments was conspicuous. The brim of her hat struck
Carrissima as being a shade wider than that of any one else, her dress
closer about the ankles, while yet she wore it without a trace of
anything that could be called vulgarity.

"I should have come even earlier," she said, taking Carrissima's hand;
"but I only got back from Sandbay this morning. I have been staying
since Saturday with my aunts; the dearest little Dresden china aunts in
the world. They are my mother's sisters and they give me no peace.
You see, they are terribly Early Victorian. You were saying that your
brother insisted that no woman under forty is capable of looking after
herself. Well, Aunt Jane and Aunt Frances think honestly that I am
going to perdition as fast as I can."

"I suppose," suggested Carrissima, "they would like you to live with
them?"

"Oh dear! they are quite mad about it. You know everybody is mad about
something! They write every week, but I positively couldn't endure it.
Of course my father did his best