these missiles struck Miss Roots full in
the throat, when it should have just delicately grazed the top of Miss
Flossie's frizzled hair, Miss Roots not only ignored the incident at
the time, but never made the faintest allusion to it afterwards.
Therefore Mr. Spinks voted Miss Roots to be a brick, and a trump, and
what he called a real lady.

Very curious and interesting was the behaviour of these people among
themselves. It was an eternal game of chivy or hide-and-seek, each
person being by turn the hunter and the hunted. Mrs. Downey tried to
talk to the birds of passage; but the birds of passage would talk to
nobody but each other. Miss Bramble took not the slightest notice of
Mr. Partridge. Mr. Partridge did everything he could to make himself
agreeable to Miss Bramble; but she was always looking away over the
aspidistras, towards the young end of the table, with a little air of
strained attention, at once alien and alert. Mr. Spinks spent himself
in perpetual endeavours to stimulate a sense of humour in Miss Walker,
who hadn't quite enough of it, with very violent effects on Miss
Bishop, who had it in excess; while Mr. Soper was incessantly trying
to catch the eye of Miss Roots around the aspidistras, an enterprise
in which he was but rarely successful; Miss Walker finally making no
attempt to bridge over the space between her chair and Miss Roots.

That empty seat was reserved for Mr. Rickman, who was generally late.
On his arrival the blinds would be pulled down in deference to his
wish for a more perfect privacy. Meanwhile they remained up, so that
wandering persons in hansoms, lonely persons having furnished
apartments, persons living expensively in hotels or miserably in other
boarding-houses, might look in, and long to be received into Mrs.
Downey's, to enjoy the luxury, the comfort, the society.

The society--Yes; as Mrs. Downey surveyed her table and its guests,
her imagination ignored the base commercial tie; she felt herself to
be a social power, having called into existence an assembly so
various, so brilliant, and so gay. One thing only interfered with Mrs.
Downey's happiness, Mr. Rickman's habit of being late. Such a habit
would not have mattered so much in any of the other boarders, because,
remarkable as they were collectively, individually, Mrs. Downey seldom
thought of them unless they happened to be there, whereas with Mr.
Rickman, now, whether he was there or not, she could think of nothing
els