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"Quite so." The young man was listened to, and he continued to argue for a long while that it was not reasonable for a woman to expect a man to spend the whole morning reading the Times, and that apparently was what Beatrice wished poor Canary to do until she chose to come down. Nevertheless, the general opinion was in favour of Beatrice and against the girl.

"Beatrice has been so kind to her," and everybody had something to say on this point.

"But what happened?" Evelyn asked, and the leader of this conversation, a merry little face with eyes like wild flowers and a great deal of shining hair, told of Beatrice's desperate condition when the news of Miss ——'s betrayal reached her.

"I went up and found her in tears, her hair hanging down her back, saying that nobody cared for her. Although she spends three thousand a year on clothes, she sits up in that bedroom in a dressing-gown that we have known for the last five years. 'Well, Beatrice,' I said, 'if you'll only put on a pair of stays and dress yourself and come downstairs, perhaps somebody will care for you.'"