d
affronted to receive so unceremonious a reply to her invitation--

"My dear Friend,--It will give me pleasure to take tea with you this
afternoon, as you so kindly suggest. I trust that the anxiety under
which you are labouring may be of a temporary nature, and shall be
thankful indeed if I can in any way assist to bring about its
solution.--Most truly yours,--

"Ellen Bean Ramsden."

"The best china, Mason, and a teapot for two!" was Miss Briskett's order
on receipt of this cordial response, and an hour later the two ladies
sat in conclave over a daintily-spread table in the drawing-room of The
Nook.

Miss Briskett was a tall, thin woman of fifty-eight or sixty, wearing a
white cap perched upon her grey hair, and an expression of frosty
propriety on her thin, pointed features. Frosty is the adjective which
most accurately describes her appearance. One felt a moral conviction
that she would suffer from chilblains in winter, that the long, thin
fingers must be cold to the touch, even on this bright May day; that the
tip of her nose was colder still, that she could not go to sleep at
night without a hot bottle to her feet. She was addicted to grey
dresses, composed of stiff and shiny silk, and to grey bonnets
glittering with steely beads. She creaked, as she moved, and her thin
figure was whale-boned into an unnatural rigidity.

Mrs Ramsden was, in appearance at least, a striking contrast to her
friend, being a dumpy little woman, in whose demeanour good-nature vied
with dignity. She was dressed in black, and affected an upright feather
in front of her bonnets. "To give me height, my dear!"

In looking at her one was irresistibly reminded of a pouter pigeon
strutting along on its short little legs, preening its sleek little head
to and fro above its protuberant breast.

"Read that!" said Miss Briskett, tragically, handing the thin sheet of
paper to her friend, and Mrs Ramsden put on her spectacles and read as
follows--

"My dear Sister,--Business connected with mines makes it necessary for
me to go out West for the next few months, and the question has arisen
how to provide for Cornelia meantime. I had various notions, but she
prefers her own (she generally does!), and reckons she can't fill in
this gap better than by running over to pay you a visit in the Old
Country. I can pick her up in the fall, and have a little trot round
before returning. She has friends sailing in th