strain they inflicted on people so much less able to contend with the
hardships of a worker's life than they themselves.

The whirr and snort of a taxi broke the thread of her thoughts. With a
grinding of brakes the cab came to a standstill at the entrance to the
block of flats, and after a few minutes Emily, the unhurried
maid-of-all-work, whom Nan's sense of fitness had re-christened "our
Adagio," jerked the door open, announcing briefly:

"A lidy."

Penelope turned quickly, and a look of pleasure flashed into her face.

"Kitty! Back in town at last! Oh, it's good to see you again!"

She kissed the new-comer warmly and began to help off her enveloping
furs. When these--coat, stole, and a muff of gigantic proportions--were
at last shed, Mrs. Barry Seymour revealed herself as a small, plump,
fashionable little person with auburn hair--the very newest shade--brown
eyes that owed their shadowed lids to kohl, a glorious skin (which she
had had the sense to leave to nature), and, a chic little face at once so
kind and humorous and entirely delightful, that all censure was disarmed.

Her dress was Paquin, her jewellery extravagant, but her heart was as big
as her banking account, and there was not a member of her household, from
her adoring husband down to the kitchen-maid who evicted the grubs from
the cabbages, who did not more or less worship the ground she walked on.
Even her most intimate women friends kept their claws sheathed--and that,
despite the undeniable becomingness of the dyed hair.