One grey, unsettled morning (it was the first of June) the English Colony of Kairoulla[4] awoke in arms. It usually did when the Embassy entertained. But the omissions of the Ambassador, were, as old Mr Ladboyson the longest-established member of the colony declared, “not to be fathomed,” and many of those overlooked declared they should go all the same. Why should Mrs Montgomery (who, when all was said and done, was nothing but a governess) be invited and not Mrs Barleymoon who was “nothing” (in the most distinguished sense of the word) at all? Mrs Barleymoon’s position, as a captain’s widow with means, unquestionably came before Mrs Montgomery’s, who drew a salary, and hadn’t often an h. Miss Grizel Hopkins, too--the cousin of an Earl, and Mrs Bedley the “Mother” of the English Colony, both had been ignored. It was true Ann Bedley kept a circulating library and a tea-room combined and gave “Information” to tourists as well (a thing she had done these forty years), but was that a sufficient reason why she should be totally taboo? _No_, in old Lord Clanlubber’s time all had been made welcome, and there had been none of these heartburnings at all. Even the Irish coachman of the Archduchess was known to have been received--although it had been outside of course upon the lawn. Only gross carelessness, it was felt, on the part of those attachés could account for the extraordinary present neglect. “I don’t myself mind much,” Mrs Bedley said, who was seated over a glass of morning milk and “a plate of fingers” in the _Circulating_ end of the shop: “going out at night upsets me. And the last time Dr Babcock was in he warned me not.” “What is the Embassy there for but to be hospitable?” Mrs Barleymoon demanded from the summit of a ladder, from where she was choosing herself a book. “You’re shewing your petticoat, dear--excuse me telling you,” Mrs Bedley observed. “When will you have something new, Mrs Bedley?” “Soon, dear ... soon.” “It’s always ‘soon,’” Mrs Barleymoon complained. “Are you looking for anything, Bessie, in particular?” a girl, with loose blue eyes that did not seem quite firm in her head, and a literary face enquired. “No, only something,” Mrs Barleymoon replied, “I’ve not had before and before and before.” “By the way, Miss Hopkins,” Mrs Bedley said, “I’ve to fine you for pouring tea over _My Stormy Past_.” “It was coffee, Mrs Bedley--not tea.” “Never mind, dear, what it was the charge for a stain is the same as you know,” Mrs Bedley remarked, turning to attend to Mrs Montgomery who, with his Lankiness, Prince Olaf, had entered the Library. “Is it in?” Mrs Montgomery mysteriously asked. Mrs Bedley assumed her glasses. “_Mmnops_,” she replied, peering with an air of secretiveness in her private drawer where she would sometimes reserve or ‘hold back’ a volume for a subscriber who happened to be in her special good graces.