sometimes put in figures--perhaps I remembered), to Mr. Rivet, whom
they had met a few years before at a place in Norfolk where he was
sketching.

"We used to sketch a little ourselves," the lady hinted.

"It's very awkward, but we absolutely MUST do something," her husband
went on.

"Of course, we're not so VERY young," she admitted, with a wan smile.

With the remark that I might as well know something more about them,
the husband had handed me a card extracted from a neat new pocket-
book (their appurtenances were all of the freshest) and inscribed
with the words "Major Monarch." Impressive as these words were they
didn't carry my knowledge much further; but my visitor presently
added: "I've left the army, and we've had the misfortune to lose our
money. In fact our means are dreadfully small."

"It's an awful bore," said Mrs. Monarch.

They evidently wished to be discreet--to take care not to swagger
because they were gentlefolks. I perceived they would have been
willing to recognise this as something of a drawback, at the same
time that I guessed at an underlying sense--their consolation in
adversity--that they HAD their points. They certainly had; but these
advantages struck me as preponderantly social; such for instance as
would help to make a drawing-room look well. However, a drawing-room
was always, or ought to be, a picture.