Pins still sprouted from between her lips and she gathered up the scissors with a tragic gesture. Slowly she unpicked the two side seams. "That's better!" Miss Uniacke gave an unexpected movement, followed by an ominous rending sound. "Ha!" she cried triumphantly. "You see for yourself!--I can't walk a step. It's ridiculous!" Mrs. Crouch sighed. "We _might_..." she suggested, "leave one side open. With--perhaps--a button?" "And show my legs!" At the wrath in her client's voice the dressmaker breathed a hurried: "Oh, Meddam!--Indeed, Meddam, I had no intention--I was going to suggest a fold ... underneath..." "Not at all!" The irate lady snapped. "You've plenty of turnings. Let it out. That's better ... Now, pin it ... There!----" Again she took a step forward. "I can move at last. I'm sure I don't know what we're coming to! You'll be asking me next to dye my hair blue! In _my_ young days..." There came a low tap at the door, breaking through the current of her memories. "Come in!--What is it?" She wheeled round, displeased. "If you please, Mum." The parlour maid stood there, gaunt and prim. "It's Mr. McTaggart asking to see you." "Shut that door!--Now, what do you mean, Maria? You know I'm engaged. Tell him I'm out." But the elderly servant stood her ground. "He's in the drawing-room, if you please, Mum. I told him you was h'occupied--but he said he could wait." She cast an openly inquisitive glance at her mistress' dress. The new Autumn gown was an "event" in that quiet household. "Indeed." Aunt Elizabeth's voice was acid. "Well, he _can_ wait, then! You'd no business, Maria, to let him in at all. You take too much on yourself." "I'm sorry, Mum. But the card in the hall said 'h'_In_,' not 'h'_Out_,' so 'ow was I to tell?" She tossed her head with an air of injured innocence. "That will do." Miss Uniacke's eyes had wandered back to the mirror, irresistibly attracted. It certainly _was_ smart ... The colour suited her. "Perhaps I'd better go and get it over," she said. "If these pins will hold?" She addressed the kneeling figure. "I'll make sure, Meddam." Mrs. Crouch smiled. She came to work "by the day" and was not at all averse to a spell of idleness reaped from the occasion. But Aunt Elizabeth guessed her secret thought. "You can have your tea now, instead of later on. That will save time." Mrs. Crouch sighed. "Yes, Meddam." She drove a pin upward with the amiable desire that Miss Uniacke should risk, when she sat down, a reminder of the fact! The unconscious victim rustled through the hall. That, she decided, was the best of taffetas. It had a distinctive and aristocratic note. Her temper was soothed by the gentle frou-frou. McTaggart was standing talking to the parrot who, after the manner of those wayward birds, received his advances with a stony silence, and sharpened, at intervals, his beak on the perch.