er dessert at
her supper this evening, and was still crashingly engaged on them when
the general drifting movement towards the two bridge-tables set in. Mrs.
Poppit, with her glasses up, followed by Isabel, was employed in making
a tour of the room, in case, as Miss Mapp had already determined, she
never saw it again, examining the quality of the carpet, the curtains,
the chair-backs with the air of a doubtful purchaser.

"And quite a quantity of books, I see," she announced as she came
opposite the fatal cupboard. "Look, Isabel, what a quantity of books.
There is something strange about them, though; I do not believe they are
real."

She put out her hand and pulled at the back of one of the volumes of
"Elegant Extracts." The door swung open, and from behind it came a noise
of rattling, bumping and clattering. Something soft and heavy thumped on
to the floor, and a cloud of floury dust arose. A bottle of bovril
embedded itself quietly there without damage, and a tin of Bath Oliver
biscuits beat a fierce tattoo on one of corned beef. Innumerable dried
apricots from the burst package flew about like shrapnel, and tapped at
the tins. A jar of prunes, breaking its fall on the flour, rolled
merrily out into the middle of the floor.

The din was succeeded by complete silence. The Padre had said "What ho,
i' fegs?" during the tumult, but his voice had been drowned by the
rattling of the dried apricots. The Member of the Order of the British
Empire stepped free of the provisions that bumped round her, and
examined them through her glasses. Diva crammed the last jumble into
her mouth and disposed of it with the utmost rapidity. The birthday of
her life had come, as Miss Rossetti said.

"Dear Elizabeth!" she exclaimed. "What a disaster! All your little
stores in case of the coal strike. Let me help to pick them up. I do not
think anything is broken. Isn't that lucky?"

Evie hurried to the spot.

"Such a quantity of good things," she said rapidly under her breath.
"Tinned meats and bovril and prunes, and ever so many apricots. Let me
pick them all up, and with a little dusting.... Why, what a big
cupboard, and such a quantity of good things."

Miss Mapp had certainly struck a streak of embarrassments. What with
naked Mr. Hopkins, and Janet's frock and this unveiling of her hoard,
life seemed at the moment really to consist of nothing else than beastly
situations. How on earth that catch of the door had come undone, she had