mous, was then
commencing to popularise, had developed with the passing years, yet still
retained a face of placid youthfulness. The two facts, taken in
conjunction, had resulted in an asset to her income not to be despised.
The wanderer through Rolls Court this summer's afternoon, presuming him
to be familiar with current journalism, would have retired haunted by the
sense that the restful-looking lady on the Windsor-chair was someone that
he ought to know. Glancing through almost any illustrated paper of the
period, the problem would have been solved for him. A photograph of Mrs.
Postwhistle, taken quite recently, he would have encountered with this
legend: "_Before_ use of Professor Hardtop's certain cure for
corpulency." Beside it a photograph of Mrs. Postwhistle, then Arabella
Higgins, taken twenty years ago, the legend slightly varied: "_After_
use," etc. The face was the same, the figure--there was no denying
it--had undergone decided alteration.

Mrs. Postwhistle had reached with her chair the centre of Rolls Court in
course of following the sun. The little shop, over the lintel of which
ran: "Timothy Postwhistle, Grocer and Provision Merchant," she had left
behind her in the shadow. Old inhabitants of St. Dunstan-in-the-West
retained recollection of a gentlemanly figure, always in a very gorgeous
waistcoat, with Dundreary whiskers, to be seen occasionally there behind
the counter. All customers it would refer, with the air of a Lord High
Chamberlain introducing _debutantes_, to Mrs. Postwhistle, evidently
regarding itself purely as ornamental. For the last ten years, however,
no one had noticed it there, and Mrs. Postwhistle had a facility
amounting almost to genius for ignoring or misunderstanding questions it
was not to her taste to answer. Most things were suspected, nothing
known. St. Dunstan-in-the-West had turned to other problems.

"If I wasn't wanting to see 'im," remarked to herself Mrs. Postwhistle,
who was knitting with one eye upon the shop, "'e'd a been 'ere 'fore I'd
'ad time to clear the dinner things away; certain to 'ave been. It's a
strange world."

Mrs. Postwhistle was desirous for the arrival of a gentleman not usually
awaited with impatience by the ladies of Rolls Court--to wit, one William
Clodd, rent-collector, whose day for St. Dunstan-in-the-West was Tuesday.

"At last," said Mrs. Postwhistle, though without hope that Mr. Clodd, who
had just appeared at the other end of t