hrough. She did not look ill--she was satisfied as to that--she
looked gorgeous and a little wan.

The bridge tables were not set out in the garden-room, which entailed a
scurry over damp gravel on a black, windy night, but in the little
square parlour above her dining-room, where Withers, in the intervals of
admitting her guests, was laying out plates of sandwiches and the
chocolate cakes, reinforced when the interval for refreshments came with
hot soup, whisky and syphons, and a jug of "cup" prepared according to
an ancestral and economical recipe, which Miss Mapp had taken a great
deal of trouble about. A single bottle of white wine, with suitable
additions of ginger, nutmeg, herbs and soda-water, was the mother of a
gallon of a drink that seemed aflame with fiery and probably spirituous
ingredients. Guests were very careful how they partook of it, so
stimulating it seemed.

Miss Mapp was reading a book on gardening upside down (she had taken it
up rather hurriedly) when the Poppits arrived, and sprang to her feet
with a pretty cry at being so unexpectedly but delightfully disturbed.

"Susan! Isabel!" she said. "Lovely of you to have come! I was reading
about flowers, making plans for next year."

She saw the four eyes riveted to her dress. Susan looked quite shabby in
comparison, and Isabel did not look anything at all.

"My dear, too lovely!" said Mrs. Poppit slowly.

Miss Mapp looked brightly about, as if wondering what was too lovely: at
last she guessed.

"Oh, my new frock?" she said. "Do you like it, dear? How sweet of you.
It's just a little nothing that I talked over with that nice Miss Greele
in the High Street. We put our heads together, and invented something
quite cheap and simple. And here's Evie and the dear Padre. So kind of
you to look in."

Four more eyes were riveted on it.

"Enticed you out just once, Padre," went on Miss Mapp. "So sweet of you
to spare an evening. And here's Major Benjy and Captain Puffin. Well,
that is nice!"

This was really tremendous of Miss Mapp. Here was she meeting without
embarrassment or awkwardness the two, who if the duel had not been
averted, would have risked their very lives over some dispute concerning
her. Everybody else, naturally, was rather taken aback for the moment at
this situation, so deeply dyed in the dramatic. Should either of the
gladiators have heard that it was the Padre who undoubtedly had spread
the rumour concerning their hostess, Mrs. P