set the remaining two ladies at their posts as sentinels on the lady of the feathers. Cuckoo put her hand to her face to pull her veil a little lower down. By accident she tugged too hard, or it had been badly fastened to her hat, for one side got loose instantly and it fell down, revealing her face frankly. The "t'p, t'p, t'p" sounded again, multiplied by two. Cuckoo, thrown into confusion by the malign behaviour of her veil, caught awkwardly at the dropped end with an intention of readjusting it, but something in the sound of the whispering suddenly moved her to a different action. She snatched the veil quite off, set her feet firmly against the thick Turkey carpet, raised her eyes and stared with all her might at the four ladies, hurling, as a man hurls a bomb, an expression of savage defiance into her gaze. The whispers stopped; a thin and repeated cough, dry as Sahara, attacked the silence, and eight eyes were vehemently cast down. Cuckoo continued staring, folding her hands in her lap. The prickly sensation increased, but she considered it now as a thing to be jumped on. Recognizing that she was recognized, she was instantly moved to play up to her part, and she longed to stare the four women out into Harley Street. If the energy of a gaze could have achieved that object, they must have backed through the doctor's plate glass into the area forthwith. They were, in fact, most obviously moved, and their attitudes expressed, by a community of lines, virtue rampant and agitation gules. A shattering silence endured till Lawler appeared to bid two of these virgins with lit lamps of self-righteousness to the consulting-room. As they rose the two other ladies rose also and followed in their wake. Lawler politely protested, but they were now to proclaim their beauty of character. "We should prefer to wait in another room," said the lady who had coughed as a communication with heaven. "Yes, another room," added the other, and as she spoke she half turned, indicating the corner where Cuckoo sat. Without a word Lawler showed them out and closed the door. For another twenty minutes Cuckoo sat alone, glaring at the table by which these members of her sex had sat, and seeing no material objects but only--as is the way of humanity--her own point of view. The ladies saw only theirs. In this respect, at least, they closely resembled the lady of the feathers. When Lawler at length returned with his grave: "This way, if you please, ma'am," Cuckoo rose to her feet with the inflexibility of some iron thing set in motion by mechanism, and marched in his wake to the doctor's presence. The doctor was standing up by a bright fire; he looked very grave. "I am very sorry to have kept you," he said, "very sorry. I did not think you could get here so quickly." Cuckoo cleared her throat. "I wish I hadn't," she answered bluntly. "Why?" "It don't matter. I started directly your wire came." "That was good of you. Please sit down."