“We’ll see. Hello! Spence is coming out again. ‘By special arrangement with the India Office.’ He’s fairly well now, it seems, and willing to sacrifice the rest of his leave ‘rather than put Government to the inconvenience of another possible change of policy in Bengal.’ _That_ means,” Colonel Daye continued, putting down the Calcutta paper and taking up his coffee-cup, “that Spence has got his orders from Downing Street, and is being packed back to reverse this College Grants business. But old Hawkins won’t have much of a show, will he? Spence will be out in three weeks.” “I’m very pleased,” Mrs. Daye remarked vigorously. “Mrs. Hawkins was bad enough in the Board of Revenue; she’d be un_bear_able at Belvedere. And Mrs. Church was so _per_fectly unaffected. But I don’t think we would be quite justified in giving a hundred, Richard—seventy-five would be ample.” “One would think, mummie, that the hat was going round for Mrs. Church,” said her daughter. “Hats have gone round for less deserving persons,” Colonel Daye remarked, “and in cases where there was less need of them, too. St. George writes me that there was no insurances, and not a penny saved. Church has always been obliged to do so much for his people. The widow’s income will be precisely her three hundred a year of pension, and no more—bread and butter, but no jam.” “Talking of jam,” said Mrs. Daye, with an effect of pathos, “if you haven’t eaten it all, Richard, I should like some. Poor dear thing! And if she marries again, she loses even that, doesn’t she? Oh, no, she doesn’t, either: there was that Madras woman that had three husbands and three pensions; they came altogether to nine hundred a year in the end. Of course, money is out of the question; but a little offering of something useful—made in a friendly way—she might even be grateful for. I am thinking of sending her a little something.” “What, mummie?” Rhoda demanded, with suspicion. “That long black cloak I got when we all had to go into mourning for your poor dear grandmother, Rhoda. I’ve hardly worn it at all. Of course, it would require a little alteration, but——” “_Mummie!_ How beastly of you! You must not _dream_ of doing it.” “It’s fur-lined,” said Mrs. Daye, with an injured inflection. “Besides, she isn’t the wife of the L.G. _now_, you know.” “Papa——” “What? Oh, certainly not! Ridiculous! Besides, you’re too late with your second-hand souvenir, my dear. St. George says that Mrs. Church sails to-day from Calcutta. Awfully cut up, poor woman, he says. Wouldn’t go back to Belvedere; wouldn’t see a soul: went to a boarding-house and shut herself up in two rooms.”