make them pay, pretty smartly too, in other ways. The
pattern was of little bunches of pink roses peeping out through trellis
work, and it was these which she had just begun to cut out. Though
Tilling was noted for the ingenuity with which its more fashionable
ladies devised novel and quaint effects in their dress in an economical
manner, Diva felt sure, ransack her memory though she might, that nobody
had thought of _this_ before.

The hot weather had continued late into September and showed no signs
of breaking yet, and it would be agreeable to her and acutely painful to
others that just at the end of the summer she should appear in a
perfectly new costume, before the days of jumpers and heavy skirts and
large woollen scarves came in. She was preparing, therefore, to take the
light white jacket which she wore over her blouse, and cover the broad
collar and cuffs of it with these pretty roses. The belt of the skirt
would be similarly decorated, and so would the edge of it, if there were
enough clean ones. The jacket and skirt had already gone to the dyer's,
and would be back in a day or two, white no longer, but of a rich purple
hue, and by that time she would have hundreds of these little pink roses
ready to be tacked on. Perhaps a piece of the chintz, trellis and all,
could be sewn over the belt, but she was determined to have single
little bunches of roses peppered all over the collar and cuffs of the
jacket and, if possible, round the edge of the skirt. She had already
tried the effect, and was of the opinion that nobody could possibly
guess what the origin of these roses was. When carefully sewn on they
looked as if they were a design in the stuff.

She let the circumcised roses fall on to the window-seat, and from time
to time, when they grew numerous, swept them into a cardboard box.
Though she worked with zealous diligence, she had an eye to the
movements in the street outside, for it was shopping-hour, and there
were many observations to be made. She had not anything like Miss Mapp's
genius for conjecture, but her memory was appallingly good, and this was
the third morning running on which Elizabeth had gone into the grocer's.
It was odd to go to your grocer's every day like that; groceries twice a
week was sufficient for most people. From here on the floor above the
street she could easily look into Elizabeth's basket, and she certainly
was carrying nothing away with her from the grocer's, for the only thing