with you, not as I expects the truth from a male, but go on."

"Well, really," said the other, looking up at the cloudless blue sky,
and wiping his face with a gaudy red silk pocket-handkerchief, "it is
rather hot, you know, and--"

Mrs. Hableton did not give him time to finish, but walking to the gate,
opened it with a jerk.

"Use your legs and walk in," she said, and the stranger having done so,
she led the way into the house, and into a small neat sitting-room,
which seemed to overflow with antimacassars, wool mats, and wax
flowers. There were also a row of emu eggs on the mantelpiece, a
cutlass on the wall, and a grimy line of hard-looking little books, set
in a stiff row on a shelf, presumably for ornament, for their
appearance in no way tempted one to read them.

The furniture was of horsehair, and everything was hard and shiny, so
when the stranger sat down in the slippery--looking arm-chair
that Mrs. Hableton pushed towards him; he could not help thinking it
had been stuffed with stones, it felt so cold and hard. The lady
herself sat opposite to him in another hard chair, and having taken the
handkerchief off her head, folded it carefully, laid it on her lap, and
then looked straight at her unexpected visitor.

"Now then," she said, letting her mouth fly open so rapidly that it
gave one the impression that it was moved by strings like a marionette,
"Who are you? what are you? and what do you want?"

The stranger put his red silk handkerchief into his hat, placed it on