In Miss Grey’s drawing-room, which was as small as Miss Grey herself, there were three persons assembled. Miss Grey, seated at the writing-table--much too large for the place, like the rest of the furniture; Florence Plowden on the big ‘Chesterfield’ sofa; and a large and tall individual standing in the middle of the floor. He was large in comparison with the ladies, and with the limited space in which he stood. But otherwise, though tall, he was a spare man; his length of limb and scantness of flesh made particularly apparent by his long clerical coat. Needless to say that he was the curate, and that it was parish business that formed the staple of the conversation. Florence had come in with her district visitor’s book; and other books of a similar description were on the table. They were talking in that curious jargon of business and gossip which makes up the talk of the workers in a parish or ecclesiastical organisation of any kind. ‘In whose district is Mead Lane?’ said Mr. Osborne. ‘A man came to me last night from No. 3, to ask me to go and see his wife. She had been in bed for about six weeks--very ill now. There is a baby, of course, and I don’t know how many children; man occasionally out of work--though not now. Everything in disorder, as you may imagine. Nobody had called to see them for weeks. A lady had come once or twice before the woman fell ill; never since.’ He made this report very drily, in staccato sentences, as if he were abridging from a book. Miss Grey turned round, twisting on her chair to give Florence a look. ‘I knew it would be so,’ she said; ‘they are a couple of old maids wrapped up in themselves. She says: “Do you think you should go out, my dear, such a cold day?” and he says: “The parish can surely wait; but you mustn’t go out, with your delicate throat, in the rain.”’ ‘This is very interesting as a social sketch,’ said the curate, ‘but it does not answer my question.’ Florence was far from being in high spirits, but her native genius was too much for her. She turned upon him with a little mincing air, and deprecatory friction of her hands. ‘Oh, don’t you really think so, Mr. Osborne?’ she said. He laughed, though with a certain look of disapproval, as if amused against his will. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘Mrs. Kendal; what is to be done with her? If she will not do what she undertakes, some one else must be got to do it.’ At which both Miss Grey and Florence shook their heads. ‘It would be such a slap in the face,’ said the little lady of the house. ‘They are good people in their way, and liberal enough. We must just manage it a little. Florence and I will go and see this poor woman, and if Mrs. Kendal hears of it we can say---- Oh, some excuse will be found easily enough.’ ‘Excuse! When she has let the woman die nearly----’