"By the way, Miss Bellairs," said Semberry, "other day you said something about a maid." "Yes, I want a new maid; I am looking for one now." "Friend of mine wants to find a situation for a good maid." "Thank you very much, but I think I shall have no difficulty in finding one to suit me in Casterwell." "But this is a London girl; very smart," urged the Major; "wants to live in country; friend recommends her no end." "Who is your friend, may I ask?" "Mrs. Arne; fashionable woman; clever woman. Thinks a lot of this maid. Wouldn't part with her, only girl wants to live in th' country. Spoke to me; said I'd speak to you." "It is very kind of you to trouble about it, Major," she said, "very kind indeed; you must let me think the matter over, will you?" "Pleasure," replied Semberry, scribbling on a page of his pocket-book, and tearing it out. "Here is Mrs. Arne's address. Write soon; might lose the girl." "What is her name?" "Lord! 'fraid don't know, Miss Bellairs. Never trouble 'bout these things as a rule. Mere chance I heard of this. Thought you'd like to know. Hallo! who's this? By George! that Radical doctor. Can't stand the man." Dr. Drabble bustled noisily into the drawing-room. He announced his own arrival in a stentorian voice. With his cunning grey face and close-cropped red hair and lean hungry aspect, he resembled nothing so much as a prowling winter fox sniffing round a hen-roost. "How are you, Miss Bellairs? There's nothing much the matter with you, that's easily seen," he roared, gripping her hand. "Miss Ostergaard, you look like yourself." "People generally do, don't they, doctor?" "Ha, ha! very good; but I'm paying you the hugest possible compliment, if you only knew how to take it. And where is Miss Slarge?" "She is engaged, doctor," said Olive, resigning herself too, with a sigh, to the company of this bull. "Will you take some tea?" "Thank you, thank you; no sugar." "Should advise sugar, Drabble," growled the Major, insolently. "Sweeten your nature." "My nature, sir, is that of primeval man--simple, childlike----" "And lawless!" put in Carson, smiling. The doctor mounted his hobby at once. "If by lawless you mean the obedience of man to the dictates of his own noble nature independent of a tyrannical government, then I am lawless," he said, oratorically. "I and my fellow-workers wish to reinstate the simplicity of primeval days." "I thought you went even further," said Olive, "and wished to revive chaos." "Chaos reigns now," proclaimed the reformer. "Chaos means disorder; and what is the world now but a disordered mass? Look at the military burdens of Europe, at the overtaxed poor, at the insolent rich; and tell me if things are as they should be." "No one said they were, doctor," remarked Carson; "but it is not by pitching bombs at people that you are going to mend them."