It was late in the evening of that eventful day, and in various fashionable drawing-rooms exhausted ladies stretched on sofas were recruiting their forces after their severe labours. It had been the fashion for the last week or more among the prospective stall-holders to allude to the fatigue before them with resigned and heroic sighs of awful import; consequently they were now convinced to a woman that they were in the last stages of exhaustion. As a matter of fact it is doubtful whether out of the sensations of all the “smart” helpers concerned--with the exception of the devoted half-dozen before mentioned, who had retired to various clubs in a state of collapse--a decent state of fatigue could have been constructed; and the reason for this was threefold. In the first place, so much money had been spent in announcing the dates when the bazaar did not take place, that there was exceedingly little forthcoming to announce the date when it did take place; consequently its attractive existence remained almost unknown to the general public, and the services of the sellers were in very slight demand. In the second place, the greater part of the work which could not be done by proxy was left undone. And in the third place, each lady had been throughout the day so deeply convinced of the “frightfully tiring” nature of her occupation, that she thought it only her duty to “save herself” whenever that course was open to her--which was almost always. In the drawing-room at Chelsea, very cool and pretty with its open windows and its plentiful supply of flowers and ferns, Mrs. Romayne was lying on the sofa, as the exigencies of the moment, socially speaking, demanded of her, in an attitude of graceful weariness; an attitude which was rather belied by the alert expression of her contented face. She had dined at home--“just a quiet little dinner, you know--cold, because goodness knows when we shall get it!”--with Julian and Loring at half-past seven. The bazaar did not close until nine, but all the principal stall-holders had thought it their duty to the following day not to wear themselves quite out, and had left the last two hours to the care of one or other of the hangers-on, of whom “smart” women may usually have a supply if they choose; and Mrs. Romayne’s quiet little dinner was only one of a score of similar functions, very dainty and luxurious in view of the tremendous exertions which had preceded them, which were being held in various fashionable parts of London. At ten o’clock Loring had taken his leave, declaring sympathetically that Mrs. Romayne must long for perfect quiet after her exertions. It was then that Mrs. Romayne had betaken herself to her sofa and her papers. “What an immense time it is since we have had such a domesticated hour!”