there was a small bottle done up in white paper with sealing wax, which,
Diva had no need to be told, certainly came from the chemist's, and was
no doubt connected with too many plums.

Miss Mapp crossed the street to the pavement below Diva's house, and
precisely as she reached it, Diva's maid opened the door into the
drawing-room, bringing in the second post, or rather not bringing in the
second post, but the announcement that there wasn't any second post.
This opening of the door caused a draught, and the bunches of roses
which littered the window-seat rose brightly in the air. Diva managed to
beat most of them down again, but two fluttered out of the window.
Precisely then, and at no other time, Miss Mapp looked up, and one
settled on her face, the other fell into her basket. Her trained
faculties were all on the alert, and she thrust them both inside her
glove for future consideration, without stopping to examine them just
then. She only knew that they were little pink roses, and that they had
fluttered out of Diva's window....

She paused on the pavement, and remembered that Diva had not yet
expressed regret about the worsted, and that she still "popped" as much
as ever. Thus Diva deserved a punishment of some sort, and happily, at
that very moment she thought of a subject on which she might be able to
make her uncomfortable. The street was full, and it would be pretty to
call up to her, instead of ringing her bell, in order to save trouble to
poor overworked Janet. (Diva only kept two servants, though of course
poverty was no crime.)

"Diva darling!" she cooed.

Diva's head looked out like a cuckoo in a clock preparing to chime the
hour.

"Hullo!" she said. "Want me?"

"May I pop up for a moment, dear?" said Miss Mapp. "That's to say if
you're not very busy."

"Pop away," said Diva. She was quite aware that Miss Mapp said "pop" in
crude inverted commas, so to speak, for purposes of mockery, and so she
said it herself more than ever. "I'll tell my maid to pop down and open
the door."

While this was being done, Diva bundled her chintz curtains together and
stored them and the roses she had cut out into her work-cupboard, for
secrecy was an essential to the construction of these decorations. But
in order to appear naturally employed, she pulled out the woollen scarf
she was knitting for the autumn and winter, forgetting for the moment
that the rose-madder stripe at the end on which she was now engaged w