“No, you needn’t,” said Florence, “not if you’ll trust me. I’ve an acquaintance at Willesden to whom I owe a call, so if you like I’ll kill the two birds with one stone. If everything is satisfactory, I’ll engage this woman on your behalf, and send you a wire that it is all right, and naming the day when she can come. You’ll be glad of her as soon as possible. I promised you I’d see you through this, Luce.” Lucy was glad to feel that the said promise had not been absolutely forgotten, and she gratefully accepted the offered help. “Of course, she’s too old. I don’t advise you to take her, remember that,” Florence went on. “But your heart is set on it.” “I can’t bear to talk of such a woman as being ‘too old,’” cried Lucy. “I hope nobody will think me ‘too old’ when I am forty-five! Such years have not reached the infirmities of age, and if they have lost something, surely they have gained more. She may not run upstairs as quickly as a girl, but she must have sense and experience, and can be safely left in charge of the house, which is most important when I have outdoor engagements.” “You being so determined to have her, and she so eager to come,” remarked Florence, “I think you might have brought down the wages a little.” “Why, you told me I should have to offer more!” said Lucy, aghast. “Yes; but people don’t care for servants with grey hair. If she’d an ounce of _savoir faire_, she’d have dyed it.” “Oh, horrid, horrid, Florence!” exclaimed Lucy. “I can’t bear to hear you talk so. It was the grey hair which helped her to look so nice.” It was not far past Lucy’s early dinner-hour. So she meant to hurry home. She invited Florence to come also, but Florence said no, she would get lunch near at hand, and then go straight home to dress for afternoon calls. “I don’t see that you couldn’t do the same if you came with us,” Lucy urged, for she had a hospitable soul, and it hurt her to part from her sister directly she had used her, and when she was willing to be useful again on the morrow. On the other hand, had she gone with Florence to a restaurant, she knew that Florence would not only have refused to be her guest, but would have insisted that Lucy and Hugh should be hers, and would have “treated” them to all sorts of luxuries in a way which always made Lucy wish she could set the same money going in other directions. But Florence was deaf to all persuasions. To own the truth, she felt relieved to get rid of her sister, for, as she said to herself, “the worry and the bad atmosphere of the last two hours had made her feel so ‘exhausted’ that she meant to recuperate with champagne, and she knew Lucy would be shocked.” Lucy too, on reaching home, found herself more weary than she would have been after a hard day’s work. However, as the “light” had gone, there was nothing very pressing to do, and she went to bed early—very soon after Hugh’s usual bed-time. Next afternoon the promised message from Florence duly arrived—