It was James Hancock's rule that a dinner should be served every night at Gordon Square, to which he could invite any one, even a city alderman.

On this especial day a dinner, even better than usual, was in prospect. Miss Hancock had a large circle of acquaintances of her own; she belonged to several anti-societies. As before hinted, she was not destitute of a certain kindness of heart, and the counterfoils of her cheque book disclosed not inconsiderable sums subscribed to the Society for the Total Abolition of Vivisection and Kindred Bodies.

To-day she expected to dinner a person, a gentleman of the female persuasion—that is to say, a sort of man. Mr Bulders, the person in question, a member of the Anti-Tobacco League, was a crank of the crankiest description. He wrote letters to the paper on every conceivable subject, and in this way had obtained a dim and unholy sort of[Pg 186] notoriety. Fox hunting was his especial detestation, and his grand hobby was cremation. "Why Fear the Flames?" by Emanuel Bulders, a pamphlet of fifteen pages, privately printed, reposed in Miss Hancock's private bookcase. But Mr Bulders has no place in this story; he is dead and—cremated, let us hope. I shadow him forth as the reason why Miss Hancock was sitting this evening by the drawing-room fireplace, dressed in the dress she assumed when she expected visitors, and engaged in crochet-work.

The clock pointed to half-past six, Bulders was due—over-due, like the Spanish galleon that was destined never to come into port. She had said in her note, "Come early, I wish to talk over the last report of the —— Society, and my brother has little sympathy with such subjects."

Suddenly her trained ear distinguished the sound of her brother's latchkey in the door below. Some women are strangely like dogs in so far as regards the senses of hearing and smell.

Patience Hancock, as she sat by the drawing-room fireplace, could tell that her brother had not entered the house alone. She made out[Pg 187] his voice, and then the voice of Bridgewater. She supposed that James had brought his clerk home to dinner to talk business matters over, as he sometimes did; and she was relapsing from the attitude of strained attention when a sound struck her, hit her, and caused her to drop her crochet-work and rise to her feet.

She heard the laughter of a girl.

Almost instantly upon the laughter the door opened, and it seemed to Miss Hancock that a dozen people entered the room.

"This is my sister Patience—Patience, Miss Lambert. We've all come back to dinner. Sit down, Bridgewater. By the way, Patience, there's a letter for you; I took it from the postman at the hall door." He handed the letter; it was from Mr Bulders, excusing himself for not coming to dine, and alleging for reason a sore throat.

Patience extended a frigid hand to Miss Lambert, who just touched it; all the girl's light-heartedness and vivacity had vanished for the moment, Patience Hancock acted upon her like a draught of cold air.

"I think you have heard me mention Miss Lambert's name, Patience. We have been to[Pg 188] the Zoo, the whole three of us. Immensely amusing place the Zoo—makes one feel quite a boy again. Hey, Bridgewater!"

"I hope you enjoyed it," said Miss Hancock in a perfunctory tone, glancing at Fanny, who was seated in a huge rocking-chair, the only really comfortable chair in the room, and then at Bridgewater, who had taken his seat on the ottoman.

"Pretty well, thanks," said Fanny, speaking in a languid tone. She had assumed very much the air of a fine lady all of a sudden: she was not going to be patronised by a solicitor's daughter, and she had divined in Patience Hancock an enemy. "The Zoo is very much like the world: there is much to laugh at and much to endure. Taken as a whole, it is not an unmixed blessing."

James Hancock opened his mouth at these sage utterances, and then shut it again and turned away to smile. Bridgewater had the bad manners to scratch his head. Miss Hancock said, "Indeed?"

"Don't you think so?"

"I think the world is exactly what we choose to make it," said Patience Hancock, quoting Bulders.

[Pg 189]

"You think that?" said Fanny, suddenly forgetting her fine lady languors. "Well, I wish some one would show me how to make the world just as I'd choose to make it. Oh, it would be such a world—no poor people, and no rain, and no misery, and no debts."

"You mean no debtors," said Patience, seizing her opportunity. "It is the debtors that make debts, just as it is the drunken people who make drunkenness."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Fanny, suddenly abandoning her argumentative tone for one of reverie. "It's the people in the world that make it so horrid and so nice."

"That's exactly it," said Hancock, who was standing on the hearthrug listening to these bana............