"Oh, come! Good-looking women aren't so rare, I know a dozen I can see any day, Mrs Eaton. But as we're here, can't she be produced?" The lady tinkled the little bell with which her table was supplied. "Some walnut cake, please." As it was set on the table, "I hope the other young lady has not left?" she inquired. "Oh no, madam." "A little more hot water." "An officer, I'll bet my eyes! And a fine-looking fellow! Did you say he was a pal of yours, miss?" Miss Dawson whispered to Lucilla as she replenished the jug. "If they mention me again, say Miss Browne--you can call me that--is gone home, and isn't coming back any more for a month." The bell tinkled again. "I thought perhaps you had forgotten the hot water," the lady said sweetly. "No, madam," replied Miss Dawson as she placed the jug on the tray; "Miss Browne, our other young lady, being gone home, we're a little short-handed, like. The young person who is taking her place is rather awkward at the work, and puts us backward," she raised her voice here that Lucilla might enjoy the joke. "Ah. I thought things were not quite so nice," the customer said. "No, madam," acquiesced Miss Dawson, and giggled, and pinched Lucilla as she retired behind the screen. The lady at the tea-table was a vivacious creature; she rattled on with hardly a break in her stream of chatter through the half-hour, during which she ate all the bread and butter and drank nearly all the tea. Lucilla, behind her screen, listening for the pleasant tones of the man's halting speech, grew weary of the high-pitched, untiring voice. "It is getting late," Captain Finch said at last. "I had better put you in a cab." "You aren't going to take me back?" "Sorry. I've got to buy some things." When they had left the room and were going downstairs, the woman's tongue still volubly running, Lucilla came with a soft rush from behind the screen and looked from the window. The shops round the market place were brilliantly lighted now; the elegant backs of the couple emerging from the confectioner's beneath the tea-room were easily visible. The man raised his stick and hailed a hansom. "How wonderfully things happen!" mused Lucilla. "He said, I remember, that he was going to the wedding of a friend; to think that it should have been here!" "If you and him are friends, I can't think why you didn't show yourself," Miss Dawson called from behind her screen. "I daresay you can't," said Lucilla to herself. "Where'd you see him first?" Miss Dawson asked. "Did he come up and speak to you?" The withering glance which Lucilla cast in the direction of the screen. "Come up and speak to me!" she repeated. "And why not, pray? Rubbish!" laughed Miss Dawson, rattling the teacups she was washing. "What does it matter in the end? Comes to the same thing when you do know them." "You and I look at such things from a different point of view."