“I don’t doubt it,” said Mouse very angrily. “He will always do everything which can by any possibility most annoy us.” “But are you in any especial difficulty at this moment, Sourisette?” asked her brother in a very kind and tender tone intended to invite her confidence. “What is especial with other people is chronic with me,” she replied pettishly. “My worries and miseries are as eternal as Poodle’s youth and courtships.” “But do you want money--well, more than usual?” “I always want it,” replied Mouse. “Everybody always wants it, except you.” “I know you always say that. I want it very much just now. But if it’s anything for the children----” “You are a model uncle out of a fairy book! No; it is not for the mites; they get their bread and milk and mutton chops--as yet. It is, it is--well, if you really care to know, these people are horribly rude and pressing, and I haven’t even a hundred pounds to throw them as a sop.” She leaned back toward her writing-table which stood beside the hearth, and, tossing its litter of paper to and fro, took from the chaos a letter from a famous firm of Bond Street tradesmen, and gave it to her brother. “As he is in the mood he may as well pay something,” she thought. “It would be a pity not to bleed the miser when one can.” Lord Hurstmanceaux ran his eyes quickly over the letter, and a pained look passed over his face, an expression of annoyance and regret. She was Kenilworth’s wife, and had been long out of her brother’s guardianship, but it hurt him to think that she exposed herself to these insults, these importunities, these humiliations. “My dear Clare, why will you lay yourself open to be addressed in this manner?” he said gravely, and when he called her Clare she knew that he was very greatly displeased. “Why will you not pull your life together into some degree of order? Why descend to the level on which it is possible for your tradesmen to write to you in such terms as these?” Lady Kenilworth, who was the most _caline_ and coaxing of women when she chose, as she could be the most autocratic and brusque when she was with people she despised, rose, looked up in her brother’s face, and stroked the lappet of his coat with her pretty slender hand sparkling with its many rings. “Write me a little check, Ronnie,” she said, “and don’t put my name; make it payable to bearer.” He shook his head. “Little checks or big checks, Mousie, don’t find their way to your tradesmen. You have played me that trick more than once; I will go to these people myself and pay them the whole account; but----” “Oh, don’t pay them the whole!” said Mouse uneasily. “That would be great waste of money. If you can really spare me as much as this give it to me; I will find a thousand better uses for it than----” “Paying a bill? I dare say. Sheridan was of your opinion; and when he was dying they sold his bed from under him.”