Dying Gladiator in
the window, and the seven-by-five painting of Niagara which represented
the one artistic excess of Mr. Peniston's temperate career.

Mrs. Peniston, under ordinary circumstances, was as much bored by her
excellent cousin as the recipient of such services usually is by the
person who performs them. She greatly preferred the brilliant and
unreliable Lily, who did not know one end of a crochet-needle from the
other, and had frequently wounded her susceptibilities by suggesting that
the drawing-room should be "done over." But when it came to hunting for
missing napkins, or helping to decide whether the backstairs needed
re-carpeting, Grace's judgment was certainly sounder than Lily's: not to
mention the fact that the latter resented the smell of beeswax and brown
soap, and behaved as though she thought a house ought to keep clean of
itself, without extraneous assistance.

Seated under the cheerless blaze of the drawing-room chandelier--Mrs.
Peniston never lit the lamps unless there was "company"--Lily seemed to
watch her own figure retreating down vistas of neutral-tinted dulness to
a middle age like Grace Stepney's. When she ceased to amuse Judy Trenor
and her friends she would have to fall back on amusing Mrs. Peniston;
whichever way she looked she saw only a future of servitude to the whims
of others, never the possibility of asserting her own eager individuality.

A ring at the door-bell, sounding emphatically through the empty house,
roused her suddenly to the extent of her boredom. It was as though all
the weariness of the past months had culminated in the vacuity of that
interminable evening. If only the ring meant a summons from the outer
world--a token that she was still remembered and wanted!

After some delay a parlour-maid presented herself with the announcement
that there was a person outside who was asking to see Miss Bart; and on
Lily's pressing for a more specific description, she added:

"It's Mrs. Haffen, Miss; she won't say what she wants."

Lily, to whom the name conveyed nothing, opened the door upon a woman in
a battered bonnet, who stood firmly planted under the hall-light. The
glare of the unshaded gas shone familiarly on her pock-marked face and
the reddish baldness visible through thin strands of straw-coloured hair.
Lily looked at the char-woman in surprise.

"Do you wish to see me?" she asked.

"I should like to say a word to you, Miss." The tone was neither
aggressive