as
made of that fatal worsted which Miss Mapp considered to have been
feloniously appropriated. That was the sort of thing Miss Mapp never
forgot. Even among her sweet flowers. Her eye fell on it the moment she
entered the room, and she tucked the two chintz roses more securely into
her glove.

"I thought I would just pop across from the grocer's," she said. "What a
pretty scarf, dear! That's a lovely shade of rose-madder. Where can I
have seen something like it before?"

This was clearly ironical, and had best be answered by irony. Diva was
no coward.

"Couldn't say, I'm sure," she said.

Miss Mapp appeared to recollect, and smiled as far back as her
wisdom-teeth. (Diva couldn't do that.)

"I have it," she said. "It was the wool I ordered at Heynes's, and then
he sold it you, and I couldn't get any more."

"So it was," said Diva. "Upset you a bit. There was the wool in the
shop. I bought it."

"Yes, dear; I see you did. But that wasn't what I popped in about. This
coal-strike, you know."

"Got a cellar full," said Diva.

"Diva, you've not been hoarding, have you?" asked Miss Mapp with great
anxiety. "They can take away every atom of coal you've got, if so, and
fine you I don't know what for every hundredweight of it."

"Pooh!" said Diva, rather forcing the indifference of this rude
interjection.

"Yes, love, pooh by all means, if you like poohing!" said Miss Mapp.
"But I should have felt very unfriendly if one morning I found you were
fined--found you were fined--quite a play upon words--and I hadn't
warned you."

Diva felt a little less poohish.

"But how much do they allow you to have?" she asked.

"Oh, quite a little: enough to go on with. But I daresay they won't
discover you. I just took the trouble to come and warn you."

Diva did remember something about hoarding; there had surely been
dreadful exposures of prudent housekeepers in the papers which were very
uncomfortable reading.

"But all these orders were only for the period of the war," she said.

"No doubt you're right, dear," said Miss Mapp brightly. "I'm sure I hope
you are. Only if the coal strike comes on, I think you'll find that the
regulations against hoarding are quite as severe as they ever were. Food
hoarding, too. Twemlow--such a civil man--tells me that he thinks we
shall have plenty of food, or anyhow sufficient for everybody for quite
a long time, provided that there's no hoarding. Not been hoarding food,
too, dear Diva?