be wondered at. Mrs. Carter had a temper of her own, and nothing
inflamed it so much as a drop of whisky, and there was nothing in the
world she liked so much as "a drop."

To meet her casually, you would judge her nothing less than the most
amiable of womankind--a large, stout, jolly woman, with a face like a
rose, and a quantity of black hair. At her best, in her fine Sunday
clothes, she was a superb figure, and wore round her neck a rope of sham
pearls that would have done credit to a sham countess. During the week,
however, she slipped, on occasion, into "déshabille," and then she
appeared not quite so attractive. No one knew the exact nature of her
profession. She did a bit of "char"; she had at one time a little
sweetshop, where she sold sweets, the _Police Budget_, and--although
this was revealed only to her best friends--indecent photographs. It may
be that the police discovered some of the sources of her income; at any
rate the sweetshop was suddenly, one morning, abandoned. Her movements
in everything were sudden; it was quite suddenly that she took a fancy
to Mrs. Slater. She met her at a friend's, and at once, so she told Mrs.
Slater, "I liked yer, just as though I'd met yer before. But I'm like
that. Sudden or not at all is _my_ way, and not a bad way either!"

Mrs. Slater could not be said to be everything that was affectionate in
return. She distrusted Mrs. Carter, disliked her brilliant colouring and
her fluent experiences, felt shy before her rollicking suggestiveness,
and timid at her innuendoes. For a considerable time she held her
defences against the insidious attack. Then there came a day when Mrs.
Carter burst into reluctant but passionate tears, asserting that Life
and Mr. Carter had been, from the beginning, against her; that she had
committed, indeed, acts of folly in the past, but only when driven
desperately against a wall; that she bore no grudge against any one