She called her niece, and Gertie came, turning the page of a book, entitled, "Hints for Gentlewomen." Gertie offered her hand to Bulpert, and remarked that he was growing stout; he advised her, with some vehemence, to take to glasses before her eyesight became further impaired. Mrs. Mills went back to the shop with a waggish caution against too much love-making. Bulpert, after shifting furniture, took up a position on the white hearthrug, and gave a stirring adventure in the life of a coastguardsman who saved from a wreck his wife and child. At the end, Bulpert mopped face, readjusted collar, and waited for congratulations. "Did you make it up out your own head, Mr. Bulpert?" "I did not make it up out of my own head," he said resentfully. "That isn't my line, and well you know it. It was written by a chap your cousin, Clarence Mills, introduced me to." "Ask him to write it again. It seems to me a stupid piece. The wife's been away for ten years, and the baby is eighteen months old." "That does require a slight alteration. But what about my rendering of it?" "Overdone," answered Gertie. "If only you'd stand up and say them quietly, your pieces would go a lot better." "But I've got to convey the meaning to the ordience." "Give 'em credit for some intelligence. When the coastguardsman is going out to the wreck, it isn't necessary to wave your arms about like a windmill. You say he's swimming, and that's enough. And if a floating spar knocked him senseless before he got to the wreck, I don't believe he could take them both in his arms and swim back to the shore." "It says he did in the poetry," contended Bulpert with warmth. "The whole fact of the matter is that you don't in the least know what you're talking about." A sound of voices came from the shop, and Gertie flushed. "Now it's no use your getting hot-tempered about it," he went on. "You speak your mind to me, and I'm entitled to speak my mind to you. What you suffer from is nothing more nor less than sheer ignorance. Imperfect education; that's what the complaint is called." "Gertie!" A call from the shop. "Yes, aunt." "Do come here just a moment. Here's the strangest coincidence I ever came across." Gertie obeyed with signs of nervousness. "This young gentleman tells me that he knows Ewelme, and he's actually been inside the house where I was born!" "How do you do?" said Gertie. "And he's going down there again shortly," went on Mrs. Mills with animation, "and he means to bring me back some roses from the garden. Isn't it good of him?" "Your daughter is fond of flowers?"