"All very jolly for us," Eric said, "but what about the poor cancerous devils in our hospital? I see us looking in on them and saying: 'Oh, you're all right! Three cheers for harmony. Come out and play golf with the staff.'" * * * * * After Eric had gone my mother lay back on the pillow, her shining eyes on Bettina pirouetting noiselessly about the room. I begged Bettina to stop her gyrating. She explained she was doing the cheque dance. Mercifully there was this antidote--I mean postscript to Aunt Josephine's letter. "Nearer the time" she would send us the money for our tickets. The enclosed L40 was for clothes. Now the way was clear! No. The question still was, Who, this side of London, could be trusted to make our frocks? The seriousness of the consideration brought the cheque dance to an end. We sat and thought. The precise date of this visit was not yet fixed. Aunt Josephine had asked what time would suit us best. With one voice, Betty and I cried, "_June!_" But we were promptly told (and we agreed) that to suggest June would be too grasping. Aunt Josephine would have other, more important, guests eager to come to her for the Coronation month. So we answered: Any time convenient to her. Then that admirable Aunt wrote back: "Would next month do?" And would we stay for the Coronation? In spite of the breathless shortness of the time of preparation, Bettina composed Coronation dances and practised curtseying to the Queen, though she knew quite well that she would only see Her Majesty at a distance driving by in her golden coach. The one consideration that sobered Bettina was who, _who_--on this short notice, with all the feminine world crying passionately for frocks--who could be found to make ours? The more plain and simple, the more important was style and cut. Nobody in the country-side was competent for such an undertaking. Brighton? Very dear, and not first-rate. Suddenly Bettina clapped her hands. "The little French dressmaker Hermione told us about." The very person! Only, wouldn't she be up to the eyes in work? We remembered, too, she was said to be "not strong." She didn't care, as a rule, to work out of London. But she had come to sew for those horrid people Lord Helmstone let the Pond House to the year before. The people turned out to be badly off, and, after doing some damage, they had gone away without paying their rent. A law-suit was pending between them and Lord Helmstone. We had never known them, but we could not help noticing their clothes. They were beautiful. Even my mother said so. Hermione had played golf once or twice with the boy and girl. One day she had admired openly something the girl was wearing. "Yes, looks quite Bond Street, doesn't it?" the girl said. "And all done at home by a little dressmaker at four-and-six a day."