tenth, by the most generous estimate, an affair of the dingiest and
foulest of all the backstairs of life. The prophetic outpourings of
Mrs. Stapleton had not altered her opinion.

"Oh! if you feel like that--" went on Laurie.

She turned on him.

"Laurie," she said, "I think it perfectly detestable. I acknowledge I
don't know much about it; but what little I do know is enough, thank
you."

Laurie smiled in a faintly patronizing way.

"Well," he said indulgently, "if you think that, it's not much use
discussing it."

"Indeed it's not," said Maggie, with her nose in the air.

There was not much more to be said; and the sounds of stamping and
whoaing in the stable-yard presently sent the girl indoors in a hurry.

Mrs. Baxter was still mildly querulous during the drive. It appeared
to her, Maggie perceived, a kind of veiled insult that things should
be talked about in her house which did not seem to fit in with her own
scheme of the universe. Mrs. Baxter knew perfectly well that every
soul when it left this world went either to what she called Paradise,
or in extremely exceptional cases, to a place she did not name; and
that these places, each in its own way, entirely absorbed the
attention of its inhabitants. Further, it was established in her view