Thereupon, under his instructions, Pollyooly warmed the tea-pot and stood by the tea-caddy ready to put in two teaspoonfuls of tea (one for him, one for the pot) the moment the kettle boiled. The moment it did boil, following his instructions, she put the tea into the pot, and then, tilting the kettle without taking it from the stove, she poured the still boiling water on to it. Then she inverted the little glass egg-boiler and stood ready to bring the infusing tea into his sitting-room as soon as the upper half of it was nearly empty of sand. Then he said in raised and sonorous tones of profound satisfaction: "That is the art of making tea. Now that you have once learnt it, I know,--I am sure that very soon you will be not only the finest griller of bacon in England, but also the finest maker of tea." "I'll try, sir," said Pollyooly cheerfully. "It doesn't seem very difficult." "To genius nothing is _very_ difficult," said the Honourable John Ruffin impressively. "The difficulty is to stick to it--to go on getting the thing right every time. But you can do it with bacon: why not with tea?" When the sand had nearly all run out of the upper part of the glass, she took the tray into the sitting-room; he poured out a cup of tea, and declared that it was tea fit for the gods. Pollyooly smiled at his satisfaction, and then said: "Please, sir: I should like a note to Madame Correlli to say that I couldn't go to my dancing yesterday because I had to go into the country. She is so particular." "Certainly; I will write it after tea," said the Honourable John Ruffin amiably. After he had finished his tea he wrote the note and gave it to her. Then she paid a proud visit to the Post Office Savings Bank and added to her fattening account the sum of twelve pounds. Undoubtedly the Osterley family were valuable acquaintances. Fortified by the exculpatory note from the Honourable John Ruffin, Pollyooly went next morning to her dancing class with an easy mind. It had been clear to her friends that the career of housekeeper, admirably as she discharged its duties, was far inferior to her abilities; it did not give them nearly full scope. Those friends were young, and they were alive, keenly alive, to the fact that there is a steady demand for angels in that sphere of British and German industry curiously known as musical comedy. They could not conceive that, since she had to work for a living, Pollyooly's natural grace and the agility she had acquired in her earlier childhood, at the village of Muttle Deeping, and still retained, could be put to more agreeable and profitable use than that of helping to supply this demand for angels, and so help to raise the British ideal of womanly beauty.