"Perhaps she has come to tell me about old maids for lodgers," she murmured. Then she ran down, opened the door, and straightway became speechless. "I have come to see you, my dear," said the lady. The fact was obvious enough to need no comment, but when people are embarrassed, and have to say something, idiotic remarks serve as well as anything. Boodles tried to reply that she perceived the visitor standing before her in the flesh; but her tongue seemed to occupy the whole of her mouth, and she could only smile and flush. Mrs. Bellamie, finding the conversation left to herself, observed that it was exceedingly cold, while poor Boodles was thinking how hot it was. She knew that her note had brought Mrs. Bellamie, and she was dreadfully afraid the lady was going to be charitable; open her purse and give her half-a-sovereign, or call to the driver to bring in a hamper of food, or perhaps of toys, for Boodles was feeling fearfully young and shy. "If she gives me anything I shall stamp and scream," she thought. "Are you really living here alone?" said Mrs. Bellamie, which was quite as foolish as her other remarks, as she could not possibly have expected to see people of various sizes and complexions tumbling suddenly from the cupboards. "How very dreary it must be for you--dear." The last word was not intended to escape. It was on the tip of the lady's tongue, and rolled off before she could stop it. "Dear" alone sounds much more tender without any possessive pronoun attached, and the sound of it made Boodles attempt to swallow something that felt like a lump of clay in her throat. She knew she would have to howl if that lump got any higher and reached the tear mark. She felt that if she opened her mouth she would begin to cry. It was such an awful and a pleasant thing to have a visitor, and Aubrey's mother; and she was thinking already how terrible it would be when the visitor went away. They went into the little sitting-room. Their breath seemed to fill it with cold steam, for there was no fire, which was a bad thing for Mrs. Bellamie, for she thought at once of the past coal-age and the resemblance of that room to her father's study; and just then Boodles began to cough. It was all over with Mrs. Bellamie. Her secret drawer was wide open, and all that she ought to have been ashamed of was revealed. She was listening again at a certain keyhole, feeling the cold current of air upon her ear, and with it the gentle persistent noise of her proud old father coughing because he hadn't got any fire. She was getting on in life, but her spirit was the same. She would have gone then, and climbed a railing, and stolen coal to give the poor girl a fire. Boodles looked up with a smile, without in the least knowing that her eyes were hungry for a caress. Mrs. Bellamie bent and kissed her, and Boodles promptly wept.