Cecil knew she had been betrayed into the contrary; but they were by this time in the High Street, bowing to others of the committee on their way to the town-hall, a structure of parti-coloured brick in harlequin patterns, with a peaked roof, all over little sham domes, which went far to justify its title of the Rat-house, since nothing larger could well use them. The facade was thus somewhat imposing; of the rear the less said the better; and as to the interior, it was at present one expanse of dust, impeded by scaffold-poles, and all the windows had large blotches of paint upon them. It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well- experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in keeping their plumage unsoiled. Lady Tyrrell kept on a little peninsula of encaustic tile, Cecil hopped across bird-like and unsoiled, Miss Slater held her carmelite high and dry, but poor Miss Fuller's pale blue and drab, trailing at every step, became constantly more blended! The dust induced thirst. Lady Tyrrell lamented that the Wil'sbro' confectioner was so far off and his ices doubtful, and Miss Slater suggested that she had been making a temperance effort by setting up an excellent widow in the lane that opened opposite to them in a shop with raspberry vinegar, ginger-beer, and the like mild compounds, and Mrs. Duncombe caught at the opportunity of exhibiting the sparkling water of the well which supplied this same lane. The widow lived in one of the tenements which Pettitt had renovated under her guidance, and on a loan advanced by Cecil, and she was proud of her work. "Clio Tallboys would view this as a triumph," said Mrs. Duncombe, as, standing on the steps of the town-hall, she surveyed the four tenements at the corner of the alley. "Not a man would stir in the business except Pettitt, who left it all to me." "Taking example by the Professor," said Lady Tyrrell. "It is strange," said Miss Slater, "how much illness there has been ever since the people went into those houses. They are in my district, you know." "You should make them open their windows," said Mrs. Duncombe. "They lay it on the draughts." "And stuff up my ventilators. That is always the way they begin." The excellent widow herself had a bad finger, which was a great impediment in administering the cooling beverages, but these were so excellent as to suggest the furnishing of a stall therewith for the thirsty, as something sure to be popular and at small expense. Therewith the committee broke up, all having been present but Miss Moy, whose absence was not regretted, though apologized for by Mrs. Duncombe. "I could not get her away from the stables," she said. "She and Bob would contemplate Dark Hag day and night, I believe." "I wouldn't allow it," said Lady Tyrrell.