rs. Arbuthnot took another sandwich.

"That's the fifth," she said. "Disgraceful, but all the fault of Bridge.
Why, of course not, if you want to go. But what made you think of it
to-night?"

Trix leant back in her chair. "I had a letter from Miss Tibbutt," she
said.

Mrs. Arbuthnot laid down her sandwich. She regarded Trix with anxious and
almost reproachful eyes.

"Oh, my dearest, nothing wrong I hope? So inconsiderate of me to talk of
Bridge. I saw a letter in your hand, but no black edge. Unless there is a
black edge, one does not readily imagine bad news. Not like telegrams.
They send my heart to my mouth, and generally nothing but a Bridge
postponement. So trivial. But it is the colour of the envelope, and the
possibility. Ill news flies apace, and telegrams the quickest mode of
communicating it. Except the telephone. And that is expensive at any
distance." Mrs. Arbuthnot paused, and took up her sandwich once more.

"Oh, no," responded Trix, answering the first sentence of the speech.
Experience, long experience had taught her to seize upon the first
half-dozen words of her aunt's discourses, and cling to them, allowing
the remainder to float harmlessly into thin air. Later there might be the
necessity to clutch at a few more, but generally the first half-dozen
sufficed. "Oh, no; no bad news. But Miss Tibbutt is not quite satisfied
about Pia."

That was true, at all events.

Mrs. Arbuthnot made a little clicking sound with her tongue, expressive
of sympathy.

"Oh, my dearest, I know that term 'not quite satisfied.' So vague. It may
mean nothing, or it may mean a good deal. And we always think it means a
good deal, when it is probably only influenza. Depressing, but not at all
serious if taken in time. And ammoniated quinine the best thing possible.
Not bitter, either, if taken in capsule form. But I quite feel with you,
and go-by all means if you wish. And take eucalyptus, with you to avoid
catching it yourself. So infectious, they say, but not to be shirked if
one is needed. I would never stand in the light of duty. The corporal
works of mercy, inconvenient at times, and I have never been to see a
prisoner in my life, but perhaps easier than the spiritual, except the
three last. You always run the risk of interference with the first of the
spiritual, so wiser to leave them entirely to priests. When do you want
to go, dearest?"

Trix came to herself with a little start. She had lost the thread of Mrs.