ore of
the feathers out of it. A gush of fluff was the result, followed by a
curious and unaccountable movement in the bed, and then from the hole
there came forth a corpulent and very mangy old rat. Its face was grey
and scaly, and horrid pink patches adorned its fat person. It gave one
beady glance at Nora, and proceeded with hideous composure to lope
heavily across the floor towards the hole in the wall by which it had at
some bygone time entered the room. But the hole had been nailed up, and
as the rat turned to seek another way of escape the chair upon which
Muriel had incontinently sprung broke down, depositing her and her
voluminous draperies on top of the rat.

I cannot feel that Miss Purcell is to be blamed that at this moment all
power of self-control, of reason almost, forsook her. Regardless of
every other consideration, she snatched the blankets and the covert-coat
skirts into one massive handful, and with, as has been indicated, a yell
of housemaid stridency, flung herself against the door and dashed into
the sitting-room, closely followed by Nora, and rather less closely by
the rat. The latter alone retained its presence of mind, and without an
instant's delay hurried across the room and retired by the half-open
door. Immediately from the narrow staircase there arose a series of
those acclaims that usually attend the progress of royalty, and, in
even an intenser degree, of rats. There came a masculine shout, a shrill
and ladylike scream, a howl from Mary Ann Whooly, accompanied by the
clang and rattle of a falling coal box, and then Lady Purcell, pale and
breathless, appeared at the doorway of the sitting-room.

"Sure the young ladies isn't in the house at all, your ladyship!" cried
the pursuing voice of Mary Ann Whooly, faithful, even at this supreme
crisis, to a lost cause.

Lady Purcell heard her not. She was aware only of her daughter Muriel,
attired like a scarecrow in a cold climate, and of the attendant fact
that the arm of the Local Government Board Inspector was encircling
Muriel's waist, as far as circumstances and a brown woollen shawl would
permit. Nora, leaning half-way out of the window, was calling at the top
of her voice for Sir Thomas's terrier; Sir Thomas was very loudly saying
nothing in particular, much as an angry elderly dog barks into the
night. Lady Purcell wildly concluded that the party was rehearsing a
charade--the last scene of a very vulgar charade.

"Muriel!" she exclaime