“He spells it with only one ‘m,’” said Georgie, “but I expect he meant that. There’s one bit of business that comes before that, for I have been offered another object for the Museum, and I said I would refer the offer to the committee before I accepted it. Lucia came to see me yesterday morning and asked----” “The Elizabethan spit,” said Mrs. Boucher. “I don’t see what we want with it, for my part, and if I had to say what I thought, I should thank her most politely, and beg that she would keep it herself. Most kind of her, I’m sure. Sorry to refuse, which was just what I said when she asked me to lunch yesterday. There’d have been legs of cold chickens of which her friends from London had eaten wings.” “She asked me too,” said Daisy, “and I said ‘no.’ Did she leave this morning?” “Yes, about half past ten,” said Georgie. “She wanted me to ask her to dinner last night.” Daisy had been writing “committee” again and again on her blotting paper. It looked very odd with two “m’s” and she would certainly have spelt it with one herself. “I think Abfou is right about the way to spell ‘committee,’” she said, “and even if he weren’t, the meaning is clear enough. But about the insurance. Robert only advises insurance against fire, for he says no burglar in his senses----” Mrs. Boucher rapped the table. “But there wasn’t the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia’ then,” she said. “And I should think that any burglar whether in his senses or out of them would think _that_ worth taking. If it was a question of insuring an Elizabethan spit----” “Well, I want to know what the committee wishes me to say about that,” said Georgie. “Oh, by the way, when we have a new edition of the catalogue, we must bring it up to date. There’ll be the manuscript of ‘Lucrezia.’” “And if you ask me,” said Mrs. Boucher, “she only wanted to get rid of the spit because it makes her chimney smoke. Tell her to get her chimney swept and keep the spit.” “There’s a portrait of her in the music-room,” said Georgie, “by Sigismund. It looks like nothing at all----” “Of course everybody has a right to have their hair shingled,” said Mrs. Boucher, “whatever their age, and there’s no law to prevent you.” Daisy rapped the table. “We were considering as to whether we should ask Mrs. Shuttleworth to join the committee,” she said. “She sang too, beautifully, on Sunday night,” said Georgie, “and what fun we had dancing. Oh, and Lucia asked for the Princess’s book to sign her name in, and the only book she had brought was a book of cross-word puzzles.” “No!” said both ladies together. “She did, because Olga’s parlour-maid told Foljambe, and----” “Well I never!” said Daisy. “That served her out. Did she write Lucia across, and Pepino down?”