Feather had only seen it as downy whiteness and perfume in Louisa’s arms or in its carriage. It had been a singularly vivid and brilliant-eyed baby at whom people looked as they passed. “Who will give her a bath?” wailed Feather. “Who will change her clothes? Someone must! Could a woman by the day do it? Cook said I could get a woman by the day.” And then she remembered that one got servants from agencies. And where were the agencies? And even a woman “by the day” would demand wages and food to eat. And then the front door bell rang. What could she do—what could she do? Go downstairs and open the door herself and let everyone know! Let the ringer go on ringing until he was tired and went away? She was indeed hard driven, even though the wail had ceased as Robin clutched her bottle to her breast and fed with frenzy. Let them go away—let them! And then came the wild thought that it might be Something—the Something which must happen when things were at their worst! And if it had come and the house seemed to be empty! She did not walk down the stairs, she ran. Her heart beat until she reached the door out of breath and when she opened it stood their panting. The people who waited upon the steps were strangers. They were very nice looking and quite young—a man and a woman very perfectly dressed. The man took a piece of paper out of his pocketbook and handed it to her with an agreeable apologetic courtesy. “I hope we have not called early enough to disturb you,” he said. “We waited until eleven but we are obliged to catch a train at half past. It is an ‘order to view’ from Carson & Bayle.” He added this because Feather was staring at the paper. Carson & Bayle were the agents they had rented the house from. It was Carson & Bayle’s collector Robert had met on the threshold and sworn at two days before he had been taken ill. They were letting the house over her head and she would be turned out into the street? The young man and woman finding themselves gazing at this exquisitely pretty creature in exquisite mourning, felt themselves appallingly embarrassed. She was plainly the widow Carson had spoken of. But why did she open the door herself? And why did she look as if she did not understand? Indignation against Carson & Bayle began to stir the young man. “Beg pardon! So sorry! I am afraid we ought not to have come,” he protested. “Agents ought to know better. They said you were giving up the house at once and we were afraid someone might take it.” Feather held the “order to view” in her hand and snared at them quite helplessly. “There—are no—no servants to show it to you,” she said. “If you could wait—a few days—perhaps—” She was so lovely and Madame Hélène’s filmy black creation was in itself such an appeal, that the amiable young strangers gave up at once.