MRS. ALL. How funny--so have we! (_Both women feel an increase of liking for one another._) I like them cooked in milk, too. [_The first barrier being satisfactorily passed, they proceed, as usual, to the subject of ailments._ MRS. ARD. My doctor _does_ do me good, I must say--he never lets me get ill. He just sees your liver's all right, and then he feeds you up. MRS. ALL. That's like _my_ doctor; he always tells me, if he didn't keep on constantly building me up, I should go all to pieces in no time. That's how I come to be here. I always run down at the end of every Season. MRS. ARD. (_feeling that MRS. ALLBUTT can't be "anybody very particular" after all_). What--to Margate? Fancy! Don't you find you get tired of it? _I_ should. MRS. ALL. (_with dignity_). I didn't say I always went to Margate. On the contrary, I have never been here before, and shouldn't be here now, if my doctor hadn't told me it was my only chance. MRS. ARD. (_reassured_). I only came down here on my little girl's account. One of those nasty croupy coughs, you know, and hoops with it. But she's almost well already. I will say it's a wonderful air. Still, the worst of Margate is, one isn't likely to meet a soul one knows! MRS. ALL. Well, that's the charm of it--to me. One has enough of that during the Season. MRS. ARD. (_recognising the superiority of this view_). Indeed one has. What a whirl it has been to be sure! MRS. ALL. The Season? Why, I never remember one with so little doing. Most of the best houses closed--hardly a single really smart party--one or two weddings--and that's positively all! MRS. ARD. (_slightly crushed, in spite of a conviction_ _that--socially speaking--Balham has been rather more brilliant than usual this year_). Yes, that's very true. I suppose the Elections have put a stop to most things? MRS. ALL. There never was much going on. _I_ should rather have said it was Marlborough House being shut up that made everything so dull from the first. MRS. ARD. Ah, that _does_ make such a difference, doesn't it? (_She feels she must make an effort to recover lost ground._) I fully expected to be at Homburg this year. MRS. ALL. Then you would have met Lady Neuraline Menthol. She _was_ ordered there, I happen to know. MRS. ARD. Really, you don't say so? Lady Neuraline! Well, that's the first _I've_ heard of it. (_It is also the first time she has heard of her, but she trusts to be spared so humiliating an admission._) MRS. ALL. It's a fact, I can assure you. You know her, perhaps? MRS. ARD. (_who would dearly like to say she does, if she only dared_). Well, I can hardly say I exactly _know_ her. I know _of_ her. I've met her about, and so on. (_She tells herself this is quite as likely to be true as not._) [Illustration: "Dear, dear! _not_ a county family!"] MRS. ALL. (_who of course does not know Lady Neuraline either_). Ah, she is a most delightful person--requires _knowing_, don't you know.