in the cutting-out room, a room which the astonishing architect
had devised upon what must have been a backyard of one of the
three constituent houses. It was lighted from its roof, and only a
wooden partition, eight feet high, separated it from the passage.
Here Sophia gave rein to her feelings; she laughed and cried
together, weeping generously into her handkerchief and wildly
giggling, in a hysteria which she could not control. The spectacle
of Mr. Povey mourning for a tooth which he thought he had
swallowed, but which in fact lay all the time in her pocket,
seemed to her to be by far the most ridiculous, side-splitting
thing that had ever happened or could happen on earth. It utterly
overcame her. And when she fancied that she had exhausted and
conquered its surpassing ridiculousness, this ridiculousness
seized her again and rolled her anew in depths of mad, trembling
laughter.

Gradually she grew calmer. She heard the parlour door open, and
Constance descend the kitchen steps with a rattling tray of tea-
things. Tea, then, was finished, without her! Constance did not
remain in the kitchen, because the cups and saucers were left for
Maggie to wash up as a fitting coda to Maggie's monthly holiday.
The parlour door closed. And the vision of Mr. Povey in his
antimacassar swept Sophia off into another convulsion of laughter
and tears. Upon this the parlour door opened again, and Sophia
choked herself into silence while Constance hastened along the
passage. In a minute Constance returned with her woolwork, which
she had got from the showroom, and the parlour received her. Not
the least curiosity on the part of Constance as to what had become
of Sophia!