"Good gracious!" interrupted Dolly "what is there to consult about; what we shall have for dinner, or the shape of his next new hat? There, don't be cross, Nora," she added, penitently as Mrs. Werner turned her head away with an impatient gesture. "Tell me what it is you want me to do, condescend to particulars, and don't generalize as is your habit, and I will be as attentive as even you could desire." "You ought never to have allowed those people to come here," said Mrs. Werner emphatically. "Archibald brought them home with him, and it would surely not have been pretty manners for me to tell them to go back again." "If you had ever been in any useful sense a helpmeet to Mr. Mortomley he would not have thought of billeting them at Homewood. Any other woman than you, Dolly, would have taught him prudence and carefulness and wisdom. I wonder your long experience of the miseries of a small income has resulted in nothing except perfect indifference to pecuniary affairs." "You mistake," answered Dolly; "it has taught me to feel unspeakably thankful for a large income." "Then why do you not take care of it?" asked her friend. "I do not think I spend so much money as you," retorted Mrs. Mortomley. "Perhaps not; but Mr. Werner's business is a much better one than your husband's, and we spend the greater part of our income in trying to increase his influence and extend his connexion." "Oh!" said Dolly, and no form of words could do justice to the contempt she managed to convey by her rendering of that simple ejaculation. "It is quite true," persisted Mrs. Werner, answering her tone, not her words. "No doubt you think so," retorted Dolly, "but I do not. For instance, how should you know whether Mr. Werner's business is a better one than ours or not?" It was not often Mrs. Mortomley claimed the colour manufactory for her own, but when it was attacked she flung personal feeling into the defence. "Henry says so," was the convincing reply. "Henry," with a momentary pause on the name intended to mark the word as a quotation, "Henry may know what he makes himself, but I cannot understand how he can tell what we make," and Dolly folded her hands together in her lap and waited for the next aggressive move. "I think, my dear, City men have ways and means of ascertaining these things." "Very likely," said Mrs. Mortomley, "for I think, my dear, City men are usually a set of ill-natured gossiping old women." "Do not be cross, Dolly," suggested her friend.