"Your club is such a long way," said Julia, with a faint accent of disparagement in her tones; "to my mind that is the worst of professional clubs; they're always so ultra-professional that one can't find a corner for anything at all fashionable. Suppose you come and lunch with me, mother dear? If you are giving up your societies why don't you join a good West-End club? You'd find it so useful, living out as far as we do." "I think I must." "I shouldn't recommend mine. It's all very well for me, but it's a cheap little club and it wouldn't do for you. Now, why don't you join one of the big clubs in Petticoat Lane?" "Petticoat Lane!" "Oh--I beg your pardon, mummy, I meant Dover Street. There are half-a-dozen of them. Shall I see if I can get your name put up? I daresay you will have to wait some little time. Which would you like--one that improves your mind or one that improves your convenience?" "Certainly not one that improves my mind." "No, I think you are quite right; I hate clubs where they have lectures and debates and other beastly things that they never have in men's clubs. Now there's the Kaiserin, that would suit you very well: handsome clubhouse, excellent cooking arrangements, spacious entertaining-room which you can hire and have all to yourself, every necessity and comfort to make a club thoroughly comfy--in fact, a second home without any bother." "But how do you know?" said Regina in a curiously small voice. "Oh, I know several women who belong to the Kaiserin," Julia answered carelessly. "What are you going to do to-day, dearest? Going to see your milliner again?" "No, I'm going to have my hair dressed; I can't do it properly myself for a few days, and I have one or two other things to do." Now it happened that of the one or two other things that Regina had to do, the most important was a visit to the distinguished specialist in whose hands the fashionable world was content to put itself with a view to getting rid of superfluous tissue. It was just on the stroke of noon when Regina found herself walking across Cavendish Square in the direction of that street of sighs which most of us know, alas! too well. She was kept waiting some little time, but the dining-room in which she spent the period of detention, along with three other ladies much fatter than herself, was cheerful, and the papers were of the newest (which is not always the case, let me remind you, in the houses of medical specialists). At last her turn came to penetrate to the sanctum of the great man. Regina was quite nervous, needlessly so, but in five minutes the bland and friendly personality whom she had come to consult had put her quite at ease. She was weighed! I do not think it would be exactly delicate to tell you the precise weight at which she turned the scale, but I have always held her up to you as a woman of that type which is called "a fine figure."