Olivia Pring was a school-mate. There had been a term together in the Lower Third. For a few weeks she had been Clare's best friend and she never let Clare forget it. Clare, with removes and double removes, had disappeared speedily from Olivia's world, but she never quite shook off Olivia. Olivia, amiable, admiring, impervious to snubs, refused to be shaken off. She went her placid way, became a governess, and an expert in the more complicated forms of crochet. She wrote to Clare about twice a year--dull, affectionate letters. Clare, that involute character, amazed herself by invariably answering them. At long intervals Olivia would be passing through London, and would announce herself, if quite convenient, as intending to visit her dear Clare that afternoon. She would describe the lengthy tussle between herself and her employer, before she had wrested the requisite permission to stay the night--and did Clare remember the last visit but three, and the amusing evening they had had? And the letter was invariably delayed in the posting, and its arrival would precede that of Olivia by a bare half-hour. Olivia, growing even fatter and more placid, would apologise breathlessly between broad smiles at the sight of Clare and recollections of the dear old days. And Clare, as one hypnotised, would go to her linen cupboard and give out sheets for the spare room. There would follow an evening of interminable small-talk for Clare, of sheer delight for Olivia Pring, who, consciously and conscientiously commonplace, enjoyed dear Clare's daring views as a youthful curate might enjoy, strictly as an onlooker, what he imagines to be the less respectable aspects of an evening in Paris. And Clare would retire to bed at ten-fifteen and sleep as she had not slept for weeks. Olivia would be regretfully obliged to catch the eight-eleven, and would depart amid embraces. And Clare would order up a second breakfast and wonder why she stood it. Yet the pile of unused doileys in her linen cupboard increased yearly. A doiley was Olivia's invariable tribute, and arrived, intricate and unlovely, within a week of her visit.