you wish, I shall be pleased to have your company!"

"Right oh!" cried Cornelia, nodding. "It will be a lesson in your silly
old pounds and pence. What do you keep in your store-room, Aunt Soph?
Nice things? Fruits? Candy? Cake? I wouldn't mind giving out the
stores for a spell, now and again. Well! ... I'll just mouch round,
and be ready for you when you set out for your walk."

Miss Briskett left the room, in blissful ignorance of what "mouch" might
mean, and much too dignified to inquire, but by the time that ten
o'clock had struck, she had learnt to connect the expression with all
that was irritating and presumptuous. In the midst of her discussion
with the cook, for instance, the sound of music burst upon her ears; the
echo of that disused piano which had almost forgotten to be anything but
a stand for ornaments and lamps. Bang went the bass, crash went the
treble, the tune a well-known dance, played with a dash and a spirt, a
rollicking marking of time irresistible to any human creature under
forty, who did not suffer from corns on their toes. In the recesses of
the scullery a subdued scuffling was heard. Tweeny was stepping it to
and fro, saucepans in hand; from the dining-room overhead, where Mason
was clearing away the breakfast dishes, came a succession of mysterious
bumping sounds. Heap stood stolid as a rock, but her eyes--her small,
pale, querulous eyes--danced a deliberate waltz round the table and
back...

"I must request Cornelia not to play the piano in the morning!" said
Miss Briskett to herself.

From the store-room upstairs a sound of talking and laughing was heard
from within the visitor's bedroom, where sat that young lady in state,
issuing orders to Mary, who was blissfully employed in unpacking the
contents of one of the big dress boxes, and hanging up skirts in the
mahogany wardrobe.

"I must beg Cornelia not to interfere with the servants' work in the
morning!" said Miss Briskett once more. At half-past ten silence
reigned, and she went downstairs, equipped in her black silk mantle and
her third best bonnet, to announce her readiness to start on the usual
morning round.

Cornelia was not in the morning-room; she was not in the drawing-room,
though abundant signs of her recent presence were visible in the
littered ornaments on the open piano.

"I must beg Cornelia to put things back in their proper places!" said
Miss Briskett a third time as she crossed the hall to the dini