Barbara, feeling that the admission would be what policemen call "used against her," answered in the affirmative. "It's very healthy," said Mrs. Harding. Barbara again assented. "Do you like it?" asked Mrs. Harding. "I can scarcely say. I have had so little opportunity of judging. It is very convenient for where my husband has to go, and all that; but it is a long way from that part of London which I know." Two or three things in this innocently-intended speech jarred dreadfully on Mrs. Harding's feelings. That worthy matron had all the blood of Ap-somebody, a tremendously consonanted personage of Plas-y-dwdllem in old times, and she was irritable in the highest degree. But she made a great gulp at her rage, and only said, "Oh, you mean the _Statesman_ office; yes, of course I ought to know where that is, considering Mr. Harding's position there! We think this a very nice situation; but, of course, when you've been brought up in Grosvenor Square, it's different! What does Vokins charge you?" "I--I beg your pardon!" said Barbara. "Vokins?" "Yes; Vokins the butcher!" repeated the energetic little woman. "Sevenpence or sevenpence-halfpenny for legs? Your mother-in-law was the only woman in the neighbourhood who got 'em for sevenpence, and I'm most anxious to know whether he hasn't raised it since you came here." "I'm sorry I'm unable to answer you," said Barbara; "but hitherto my husband has paid the tradesmen's bills. I've no doubt" she added, with a half-sneer, "that it shows great shortcomings on my part; but it is the fact. I have hopes that I shall improve as I go on." "Oh, no doubt," said Mrs. Harding, faintly. "Live and learn, you know." But she gave up Barbara Churchill from that time out. She, who had known the price of every article of domestic consumption since she was fourteen years old, and had fought innumerable hand-to-hand combats with extortionate tradesmen, looked upon this _insouciance_ of Barbara's as any thing but a venial crime. A few other topics were started, feebly entered into, and dropped; and then Mrs. Harding took her leave, with faintly-expressed hopes of seeing her new-made acquaintance soon again. That afternoon George Harding, returning home to dinner, was told by his wife that she had called on Mrs. Churchill. "Ay!" said the honest old boy; "and what did you make of her, Sophy? I'd trust your judgment in a thousand; and Frank has a high opinion of it, I know. Is she pretty, and clever, and managing, and all the rest of it?" "Well, as to prettiness, George, she's not one of my style of beauties," said Mrs. Harding. "She's a tall slip of a woman, with straight features, such as you see on the old coins; and she's very stand-offish in her manners; and, as to managing--well, she's too fine a lady to know her tradespeople's names, or what she pays them."