have been art, but looked like nature. She had an open face, a baby
smile and there was a frank girlishness about her dress and manner that
took my fancy. "After all," I thought to myself, "even Hilda Wade is
fallible."

So that evening, when her "turn" was over, I made up my mind to go round
and call upon her. I had told Cecil Holsworthy my intentions beforehand,
and it rather shocked him. He was too much of a gentleman to wish to spy
upon the girl he had promised to marry. However, in my case, there need
be no such scruples. I found the house and asked for Miss Montague. As
I mounted the stairs to the drawing-room floor, I heard a sound of
voices--the murmur of laughter; idiotic guffaws, suppressed giggles, the
masculine and feminine varieties of tomfoolery.

"YOU'D make a splendid woman of business, YOU would!" a young man was
saying. I gathered from his drawl that he belonged to that sub-species
of the human race which is known as the Chappie.

"Wouldn't I just?" a girl's voice answered, tittering. I recognised it
as Sissie's. "You ought to see me at it! Why, my brother set up a place
once for mending bicycles; and I used to stand about at the door, as if
I had just returned from a ride; and when fellows came in, with a nut
loose or something, I'd begin talking with them while Bertie tightened
it. Then, when THEY weren't looking, I'd dab the business end of a
darning-needle, so, just plump into their tires; and of course, as soon
as they went off, they were back again in a minute to get a puncture
mended! I call THAT business."

A roar of laughter greeted the recital of this brilliant incident in a
commercial career. As it subsided, I entered. There were two men in the