might be rung without effect, 'till all was blue.'

'We'll see about that,' answered her sister, and forthwith invaded
the lower parts of the house. Thence, presently, her voice became
audible, rising gradually to shrillness; with it there blended the
rougher accents of the housemaid, now in reckless revolt. Beatrice
listened for a minute or two in the hall, then passed on into the
drawing-room with a contemptuous laugh. Fanny, to whom the uproar
seemed to bring a renewal of appetite, cut herself a slice of bread
and butter, and ate it as she stood at the window.

'Dirty cat! beast! swine!'

The mistress of the house, fairly beaten away by superior force of
vocabulary, reappeared with these and other exclamations, her face
livid, her foolish eyes starting from their sockets. Fanny, a sort
of Mother Cary's chicken, revelled in the row, and screamed her
merriment.

It was long before the domestic uproar wholly subsided, but towards
eleven o'clock the sisters found themselves together in the
drawing-room. Ada sprawled limply on a sofa; Beatrice sat with legs
crossed in the most comfortable chair; and Fanny twirled about on a
music stool.

The only books in the room were a few show-volumes, which belonged
to Arthur Peachey, and half-a-dozen novels of the meaner kind,
wherewith Ada sometimes beguiled her infinite leisure. But on tables
and chairs lay scattered a multitude of papers: illustrated
weeklies, journals of society, cheap miscellanies, penny novelettes,