"Anyway," continued Mrs Devitt impatiently, "she wishes to know if I
am in want of a companion, or anything of that sort, as she has a
teacher she is unable to keep owing to her school having fallen on
bad times."

"Then she's young!" cried Lowther, who was lolling near the window.

"'Her name is Mavis Keeves; she is the only daughter of the late
Colonel Keeves, who, I believe, before he was overtaken by
misfortune, occupied a position of some importance in the vicinity
of Melkbridge,'" read Mrs Devitt from Miss Annie Mee's letter.

"Keeves! Keeves!" echoed her husband.

"Do you remember him?" asked his wife.

"Of course," he replied. "He was a M.F.H. and knew everyone"
(everyone was here synonymous with the elect the Devitts were pining
to meet on equal terms). "His was Sir Henry Ockendon's place."

The prospects of Mavis Keeves securing employment with the Devitts
had, suddenly, increased.

"How was it he came 'down'?" asked the agreeable rattle, keenly
interested in anything having to do with the local aristocracy, past
or present.

"The old story: speculatin' solicitors," replied Montague, who made
a point of dropping his "g's." "One week saw him reduced from money
to nixes."