A girl, you say?  Well, of course.  But you mustn’t look so proud of yourself.  A body needn’t be anything like so clever as you are to be able to guess that there’s a girl in it.  Do you suppose I should have imagined for a moment that it would interest you if there hadn’t been a girl in it?  Not exactly!  Well, it’s a girl from Winnipeg.  Came to England in June with her parents.  Or rather, perhaps, her parents came with her.  I’d never seen any of the three before—­didn’t know them from Adam and Eve.  But my husband had made friends with them out there last year—­great friends.  And they wanted to make the acquaintance of my husband’s wife.  I’d gathered from Harry that they were quite my sort....  What is my sort?  You know perfectly well what my sort is.  There are only two sorts of people—­the decent sort and the other sort.  Well, they were doing England—­you know, like Colonial people do—­seriously, leaving nothing out.  By the way, their name was only “Smith,” without even a “y” in it or an “e” at the end.  They wished to try a good seaside place, so I wrote to them and suggested Llandudno as a fair specimen, and it was arranged that we should meet there and spend at least a week together, and afterwards they were to come to the Five Towns.  I suggested we should all stay at Hawthornden’s ...  Hawthornden’s?  Don’t you know—­it’s easily the best private hotel in Llandudno.  Lift and a French chef and all kinds of things; but surely you must have seen all about it in the papers!

Now that was why I took Ellis with me.  I hate travelling about alone, especially when my husband’s away.  And it was particularly on account of the girl that I stole the blue suit.  But I didn’t tell Ellis a word about the girl, and I only just mentioned the father and mother—­and not even that until we were safely in the train.  These young dandies are really very nervous and timid at bottom, you know, in spite of their airs.  Ellis would walk ten miles sooner than have to meet a stranger of the older generation.  And he’s just as shy about girls too.  I believe most men are, if you ask me.

The great encounter occurred in the hall, just before dinner.  They were late, and so were we.  I tell you, we were completely outshone.  I tell you, we were not in it, not anywhere near being in it!  For one thing, they were in evening-dress.  Now at Hawthornden’s you never dress for dinner.  There isn’t a place in Llandudno where it’s the exception not to dress for dinner.  They seemed rather surprised; not put out, not ashamed of themselves for being too swagger, but just mildly disappointed with Hawthornden’s.  The fact is, they didn’t think much of Hawthornden’s.  I learnt all manner of things during dinner.  They’d been in Scotland when I corresponded with them, but before that they’d stayed at the Ritz in London, and at the Hotel St Regis in New York, and the something else—­I forget the name—­at Chicago.  I was expecting to meet “Colonials,” but