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reiterating passionately that she knew she had had it when she went to bed the previous evening, she nearly provoked a domestic crisis by asserting her belief that someone had stolen the compact.
    Mrs. Haddington, who had not till then accorded the disaster more than a perfunctory interest, rather hastily intervened, telling her daughter not to talk nonsense, and reminding her that she had at least four other compacts at her disposal.
    "But this was my favourite one!" Cynthia said. "I can't bear it if it's lost! It's the round one, covered with petitpoint, with -"
    "Yes, darling," interrupted Mrs. Haddington, with careful restraint. "We all know what it looks like. It's the one Dan gave you for Christmas, isn't it? I expect it'll turn up. Just don't fuss!"
    But this advice fell on deaf ears. Cynthia went on drifting from room to room, leaving chaos in her wake, and maintaining a maddening flow of complaints and conjectures, until she was forced temporarily to abandon her search by the realisation that since it was now one o'clock, at which hour she was pledged to join a luncheon-party at Claridge's, she would obviously be rather late unless she left the house at once.
    Mrs. Haddington had also a luncheon-engagement, but found time, before departing to keep it, to condemn Miss Birtley's arrangement of the flowers, characterising the bowls as messy.
    "Well, I know they aren't good," said Beulah, sighing. "It's a bit difficult, with so little choice, and carnations will flop so!"
    "Anyone with a grain of sense," said Mrs. Haddington, "would have used tangled wire to hold them. It seems to me I have to think of everything! They must all be done again - and do please use your intelligence!"
    "I haven't any, so would you also think what kind of wire, and where I can find it?" snapped Beulah.
    Mrs. Haddington's eyes narrowed. "My good girl, if you speak to me like that you will have considerable cause to regret it," she said. "Ask Thrimby for some picture-wire, and if he has none you have plenty of time to go out and buy some!"
    She then walked away; and Beulah, knowing that Thrimby would derive a subtle pleasure from disclaiming all knowledge of the presence of picture-wire in the house, once more sallied forth on an uninspiring errand.
    The rearrangement of the flowers, accompanied as it was by a good deal of walking up and downstairs with the various bowls and vases, left Miss Birtley feeling decidedly limp; nor was the tangling of rather thick and ropy picture-wire unattended by difficulties. A guilty suspicion crossed her mind that picture-wire was not really what was wanted, but by dint of much labour and ingenuity she did succeed in using it to some advantage. The bowls were replaced, the floor of the cloakroom once more swept, the spare wire neatly coiled, and left on the shelf against a future need; and Beulah was just wondering whether she dared snatch half an hour's respite, when the front-door bell rang, and, a few minutes later, Thrimby came to inform her that the dressmaker had arrived, and would like to know what she could be getting on with until the return of Miss Cynthia from her luncheon-party.
    Well aware that her employer would acidly resent any idleness on Miss Spennymoor's part while she was under her roof, Beulah climbed the stairs again, this time to Cynthia's bedroom. This apartment, which was at the back of the house, on the second floor, was a triumph of the decorator's art, and might well have been called a Symphony in Satin. Satin, of a ravishing shade of peach, covered the window, all the chairs, the kidney-shaped dressing-table, and had even been used for the padded head and foot boards of the bed. Several rather grubby dolls were propped up in dejected attitudes on various pieces of furniture, one being used to cover the pinkenamel telephone by the bed. The room was in its usual state of disorder, the combined efforts of one personal maid and two housemaids being insufficient to keep pace with