Mrs. Roby wrinkled her sunny brows in a conscientious effort of memory, as a result of which she recalled that, oh, yes, she HAD seen the book at her brother’s, when she was staying with him in Brazil, and had even carried it off to read one day on a boating party; but they had all got to shying things at each other in the boat, and the book had gone overboard, so she had never had the chance-- The picture evoked by this anecdote did not advance Mrs. Roby’s credit with the club, and there was a painful pause, which was broken by Mrs. Plinth’s remarking: “I can understand that, with all your other pursuits, you should not find much time for reading; but I should have thought you might at least have GOT UP ‘The Wings of Death’ before Osric Dane’s arrival.” Mrs. Roby took this rebuke good-humouredly. She had meant, she owned to glance through the book; but she had been so absorbed in a novel of Trollope’s that-- “No one reads Trollope now,” Mrs. Ballinger interrupted impatiently. Mrs. Roby looked pained. “I’m only just beginning,” she confessed. “And does he interest you?” Mrs. Plinth inquired. “He amuses me.” “Amusement,” said Mrs. Plinth sententiously, “is hardly what I look for in my choice of books.” “Oh, certainly, ‘The Wings of Death’ is not amusing,” ventured Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first selection does not suit. “Was it MEANT to be?” enquired Mrs. Plinth, who was fond of asking questions that she permitted no one but herself to answer. “Assuredly not.” “Assuredly not--that is what I was going to say,” assented Mrs. Leveret, hastily rolling up her opinion and reaching for another. “It was meant to--to elevate.” Miss Van Vluyck adjusted her spectacles as though they were the black cap of condemnation. “I hardly see,” she interposed, “how a book steeped in the bitterest pessimism can be said to elevate, however much it may instruct.” “I meant, of course, to instruct,” said Mrs. Leveret, flurried by the unexpected distinction between two terms which she had supposed to be synonymous. Mrs. Leveret’s enjoyment of the Lunch Club was frequently marred by such surprises; and not knowing her own value to the other ladies as a mirror for their mental complacency she was sometimes troubled by a doubt of her worthiness to join in their debates. It was only the fact of having a dull sister who thought her clever that saved her from a sense of hopeless inferiority. “Do they get married in the end?” Mrs. Roby interposed. “They--who?” the Lunch Club collectively exclaimed. “Why, the girl and man. It’s a novel, isn’t it? I always think that’s the one thing that matters. If they’re parted it spoils my dinner.”