"Ah yes, yes," said Mr. Jowett, distributing brusque nods to the women present. "What I want is a bit of thick string." (His wife's delicate drawing-room hardly seemed the place to look for such a thing.) "No, no tea, my dear. I told you I wanted a bit of _thick string_.... Yes, let's hope it won't spoil Jean, but I think it's almost sure to. Fortune hunters, too. Bad thing for a girl to have money.... Yes, yes, I asked the servants and Chart brought me the string basket, but it was all thin stuff. I'll lose the post, but it's always the way. Every day more rushed than another. Remind me, Janetta, to get some thick string to-morrow. I've no time to go down to the town to-day. Why, bless me, my morning letters are hardly looked at yet," and he fussed himself out of the room. Mrs. Duff-Whalley rose to go. "Then, Mrs. Jowett, I can depend on you to look after that collecting? And please be firm. I find that collectors are apt to be very lazy and unconscientious. Indeed, one told me frankly that in her district she only went to the people she knew. That isn't the way to collect. The only way is to get into each house--to stand on the doorstep is no use, they can so easily send a maid to refuse--and sit there till they give a subscription. Every year since I took it on there has been an increase, and I'll be frightfully disappointed if you let it go back." Mrs. Jowett looked depressed. She knew herself to be one of the worst collectors on record. She was guiltily aware that she often advised people not to give; that is, if she thought their circumstances straitened! "I don't know," she began, "I'm afraid I could never sit in a stranger's house and insist on being given money. It's so--so high-handed, like a highwayman or something." "Think of the cause," said Mrs. Duff-Whalley, "not of your own feelings." "Yes, of course, but ... well, if there is a deficit, I can always raise my own subscription to cover it." She smiled happily at this solution of the problem. Mrs. Duff-Whalley sniffed. "'The conies are a feeble folk,'" she quoted rudely. "Well, good-bye. I shall send over all the papers and collecting books to-morrow. Muriel and I go off to London on Friday _en route_ for the south. It will be pleasant to have a change and meet some interesting people. Muriel was just saying it's a cabbage's life we live in Priorsford. I often wonder we stay here...." Mrs. Duff-Whalley went home a very angry woman. After dinner, sitting with Muriel before the fire in the glittering drawing-room, she discussed the matter. "I know what'll be the end of it," she said. "You saw what a fuss Miss Reston made of Jean the other day when we called? Depend upon it, she knew the money was coming. I dare say she and her brother are as poor as church mice--those aristocrats usually are--and Jean's money will come in useful. Oh, we'll see her Lady Bidborough yet.... I tell you what it is, Muriel, the way this world's managed is past speaking about."