"Those were happy days," Dora would sigh fondly. "I was a happy wife and mother till death stole both my treasures." "But you've been so wonderfully brave, dear," Mrs. Pratt would murmur. "See how you've built up your life again." "I have been lucky in having you to help me. I couldn't have done it without you, Violet; you know how little use the Greenes have been to me." This was an immensely satisfactory opening. Violet Pratt, a solitary woman except for her friendship with Dora Greene, enjoyed vicariously the many slights and rebuffs which Dora considered that she endured from her husband's relations. By 1928 this list of slights had been added to by both Mrs. Rodney's daughter-in-laws. Helen, Mrs. Geoffrey Greene had failed to call on her Aunt Dora for nearly two years, and had moreover never once invited her to a meal of any sort. "Not even tea," said Dora acidly. "And you can hardly think that would be too much trouble even in a small house." "Indeed you can not," Mrs. Pratt answered warmly. "And especially after the kind way you asked her to dinner as a bride." But the most recent insult was naturally the most interesting. At the wedding of Hugh and Jessica only three weeks ago, Mrs. Edwin, arriving a little late when the bride was already in the church, had been hustled into a back seat instead of being allowed to take her place in one of the front pews with the rest of the family. "Of course I don't really blame Jessica," said Dora, as she had already said some twenty or thirty times during the last three weeks. "But still, it just shows. Some arrangement should surely have been made for me to take my proper place, and even if I was a little late, well, I haven't a motor like some of the others." "I expect it was all Mrs. Rodney's doing," suggested Mrs. Pratt darkly. Dora pounced on this. "Do you really think so?" she asked eagerly. "Well, I wouldn't be surprised at anything after the way she has always looked down on me and put me on one side." It was at this propitious moment that the maid brought in a letter at which Dora exclaimed triumphantly: "There now, talk of the Devil----" She read the letter and handed it to Mrs. Pratt. "Read that, Violet," she said. "Read it and tell me what you think of it. I should have thought that even Edith might have remembered that next week is the anniversary of little Edwin's death. Not the actual day of course, but I should have thought that a different week altogether would have shown more courtesy and consideration. She knows I always keep these few days sacred to my memories." Mrs. Pratt read the short letter. "207 Sussex Square, "November 12th. "DEAR DORA,