towards her mistress.

"Here she is," said Diva. "All right, Janet. You go home. I'll see to
the other things."

"It's a lovely day," said Miss Mapp, beginning to lash her tail. "So
bright."

"Yes. Pretty trimming of poppies," said Diva. "Janet's got rosebuds."

This was too much.

"Diva, I didn't think it of you," said Miss Mapp in a shaking voice.
"You saw my new frock yesterday, and you were filled with malice and
envy, Diva, just because I had thought of using flowers off an old
chintz as well as you, and came out first with it. You had meant to wear
that purple frock yourself--though I must say it fits Janet
perfectly--and just because I was first in the field you did this. You
gave Janet that frock, so that I should be dressed in the same style as
your parlourmaid, and you've got a black heart, Diva!"

"That's nonsense," said Diva firmly. "Heart's as red as anybody's, and
talking of black hearts doesn't become _you_, Elizabeth. You knew I was
cutting out roses from my curtains----"

Miss Mapp laughed shrilly.

"Well, if I happen to notice that you've taken your chintz curtains
down," she said with an awful distinctness that showed the wisdom-teeth
of which Diva had got three at the most, "and pink bunches of roses
come flying out of your window into the High Street, even my poor wits,
small as they are, are equal to drawing the conclusion that you are
cutting roses out of curtains. Your well-known fondness for dress did
the rest. With your permission, Diva, I intend to draw exactly what
conclusions I please on every occasion, including this one."

"Ho! That's how you got the idea then," said Diva. "I knew you had
cribbed it from me."

"Cribbed?" asked Miss Mapp, in ironical ignorance of what so vulgar and
slangy an expression meant.

"Cribbed means taking what isn't yours," said Diva. "Even then, if you
had only acted in a straightforward manner----"

Miss Mapp, shaken as with palsy, regretted that she had let slip, out of
pure childlike joy, in irony, the manner in which she had obtained the
poppy-notion, but in a quarrel regrets are useless, and she went on
again.

"And would you very kindly explain how or when I have acted in a manner
that was not straightforward," she asked with laborious politeness. "Or
do I understand that a monopoly of cutting up chintz curtains for
personal adornment has been bestowed on you by Act of Parliament?"

"You knew I was meaning to make a frock with chintz roses