by any light she had a liveliness which might be
mistaken for wit, and a flattering manner which might be taken for
sincerity. She hoped men were not so easily duped as that, and was sadly
afraid that they were. Blind fools!

* * * * *

The number of visits that Miss Mapp made about tea-time in this week
before Christmas to the post-box at the corner of the High Street, with
an envelope in her hand containing Mr. Hopkins's bill for fish (and a
postal order enclosed), baffles computation. Naturally, she did not
intend, either by day or night, to risk being found again with a blank
unstamped envelope in her hand, and the one enclosing Mr. Hopkins's bill
and the postal order would have passed scrutiny for correctness,
anywhere. But fair and calm as was the exterior of that envelope, none
could tell how agitated was the hand that carried it backwards and
forwards until the edges got crumpled and the inscription clouded with
much fingering. Indeed, of all the tricks that Miss Mapp had compassed
for others, none was so sumptuously contrived as that in which she had
now entangled herself.

For these December days were dark, and in consequence not only would the
Contessa be looking her best (such as it was) at tea-time, but from Miss
Mapp's window it was impossible to tell whether she had gone to tea with
him on any particular afternoon, for there had been a strike at the
gas-works, and the lamp at the corner, which, in happier days, would
have told all, told nothing whatever. Miss Mapp must therefore trudge to
the letter-box with Mr. Hopkins's bill in her hand as she went out, and
(after a feint of posting it) with it in her pocket as she came back, in
order to gather from the light in the windows, from the sound of
conversation that would be audible as she passed close beneath them,
whether the Major was having tea there or not, and with whom. Should she
hear that ringing laugh which had sounded so pleasant when she revoked,
but now was so sinister, she had quite determined to go in and borrow a
book or a tiger-skin--anything. The Major could scarcely fail to ask her
to tea, and, once there, wild horses should not drag her away until she
had outstayed the other visitor. Then, as her malady of jealousy grew
more feverish, she began to perceive, as by the ray of some dreadful
dawn, that lights in the Major's room and sounds of elfin laughter were
not completely trustworthy as proofs that the Co