in gold "_Oh Horrors!_" and another with those she has paid with "_Thank Heaven!_" on it, though that one is mostly empty. She never hardly pays bills, she says it is waste of tissue, and bad form, but sends something on account, and that I think is a very good way, for however broke you are, you must go on ordering dresses, else the dressmaker would close your account, and if you only go on long enough, the chances are you'll die first and leave a nice little bill behind you, that, being dead, you can't be expected to pay! I hate kissing people in bed, I nearly always tumble over them; and also, if they are writing, I can't help seeing what it is, and then if it is "_Dearests_" and "_Darlings_" I do feel awkward. But to-day when she had said "How do you do?" she handed me the writing-board. "Write for me, dear," she said, "to the most odious woman in London. And the most insolent, and the most unwashed! Insolent! Yes, positively she dared to play Lady Ildegonde in _The Devey Devastator_ at a _matinée_ at Camberwell yesterday, in perfect dreams of dresses--stood by the management of course--and nails like a coal-heaver's. Now don't you think, that as the part of Lady Ildegonde was admittedly written round my personality, with my entire consent, that it is an outrage for Irene Lauderdale to dress the part better than I can afford to do! I shall not forgive her. Now you write. '_Dear thing!_' Don't be surprised, I can't afford to quarrel with her, unfortunately! '_You were wonderful yesterday! I know what's what, and believe me that's it!_' I mean the dresses, but she will think I mean her playing! That is what we call diplomacy. Don't say any more. Short, and spiteful. Now seal it. I will see that Mrs. Ptomaine guys Lauderdale in Romeo. Tommy will do anything for me, and _The Bittern_ will do anything for her. We will go and see her this very afternoon. I must get up, I suppose. Ring for Miller, dear. Oh, good heavens! how bored I am!" She threw one of the French novels (they were library books, so it didn't matter) across the room, and it fell into the wash-basin, and then she seemed to feel better. "I wish I could do without Miller!" she said. "Old Miller hates me, and I loathe her. But she will never leave me. Too good 'perks' for that. She always folds up my frocks as if she knew they would belong to her one day. So they will! I can't afford to quarrel with a woman who can do my hair carelessly, with a single hair-pin. What am I going to wear to-day, Miller?" "Well," said Mrs. Miller (she's Scotch, and she is rather stingy of "ladyships"), "there's your blue that come home last week. It seems a pity to leave it aside just yet." "You mean you can do without it a little longer, eh, Miller? No, I can't put that on, it's too big for me since massage. I simply swim in it." "Then there is the grey _panne_." "Oh, that dam-panne, as I call it. No, it makes me look like my own maid. No offence to you, Miller."