"Yes, but Mr. Moore," said Miss Georgie, coming suddenly back from the window--and she was blushing furiously, up to the roots of her pretty golden-red hair, and covertly laughing at the same time, "my difficulty is that I try to do my best as the woman who unexpectedly sees her dead brother before her; but I've got nothing to come and go on. I never saw a dead body in my life; and it would hardly do to try it with a real dead body--" "Georgie, don't be horrid!" Lady Adela said, severely. "Here is Mr. Moore, who can tell you how high the hands should be held, and whether they should be clenched or open." "Well, Lady Adela," he said, in his confusion (for he was in mortal terror lest she should ask him to get up and posture before her), "the fact is that on the stage there are so many ways of expressing fear or dismay that no two people would probably adopt the same gestures. Would you have her hands above her head? Wouldn't it be more natural for her to have them about the height of her shoulders--the elbows drawn tightly back--her palms uplifted as if to shut away the terrible sight?--" "Yes, yes!" said Lady Adela, eagerly; and she quickly scribbled some notes on the paper before her. "The very thing!--the very thing!" "But don't you think," he ventured to say, "that that would look rather mechanical--rather stagey, in fact? I know nothing about writing; but I should think you would want to deal mostly with the expression of the woman's face--" "I want to have it all!" the anxious authoress exclaimed. "I want to have attitudes--gestures--everything; to make the picture vivid. I must have the actual tone of her shriek--" "Which Mr. Moore heard as he came in," Miss Georgie said, as a kind of challenge. "Yes, I thought I heard a slight cry," he admitted, gravely. "Thank you so much, Mr. Moore," said Lady Adela, with her most charming smile, as she began to fold up her notes. "The little piece of realism you have suggested will come in admirably; and I think I've done enough for to-day--thanks to Georgie here, who has just been an angel of patience." Tea followed, and some idle talk, during which Lionel learned that Lady Adela and her sisters were going down to Brighton the following day. He incidentally mentioned Octavius Quirk's name; whereupon his hostess, who was a sharp and a shrewd woman when she was not dabbling in literature, instantly and graciously explained to him that she had been corresponding a good deal with Octavius Quirk of late, over her new work. She informed him, further, that Octavius Quirk was coming to dine there that evening--what a pity it was that Mr. Moore was engaged every evening at the theatre! When Lionel left, she had persuaded him that he was just as much a favorite as ever; he could very well understand that she had cultivated Octavius Quirk's acquaintance only in his capacity as a kind of pseudo-literary person.