Priscilla sighed, and stood drooping and penitent by the dresser while he went down the room to where Robin still leaned against the wall.

“Sir,” said Fritzing—­he never called Robin young man, as he did Tussie—­“my niece tells me you are unable to distinguish truth from parable.”

“What?” said Robin staring.

“You are not, sir, to suppose that when my niece described her sisters as dead that they are not really so.”

“All right sir,” said Robin, his eyes beginning to twinkle.

“The only portion of the story in which my niece used allegory was when she described them as having been smothered.  These young ladies, sir, died in the ordinary way, in their beds.”

“Feather beds, sir?” asked Robin briskly.

“Sir, I have not inquired into the nature of the beds,” said Fritzing with severity.

“Is it not rather unusual,” asked Robin, “for two young ladies in one family to die at once?  Were they unhealthy young ladies?”

“Sir, they did not die at once, nor were they unhealthy.  They were perfectly healthy until they—­until they began to die.”

“Indeed,” said Robin, with an interest properly tinged with regret.  “At least, sir,” he added politely, after a pause in which he and Fritzing stared very hard at each other, “I trust I may be permitted to express my sympathy.”

“Sir, you may.”  And bowing stiffly Fritzing returned to Priscilla, and with a sigh of relief informed her that he had made things right again.

“Dear Fritzi,” said Priscilla looking at him with love and admiration, “how clever you are.”

XIII

It was on the Tuesday, the day Priscilla and Fritzing left Baker’s and moved into Creeper Cottage, that the fickle goddess who had let them nestle for more than a week beneath her wing got tired of them and shook them out.  Perhaps she was vexed by their clumsiness at pretending, perhaps she thought she had done more than enough for them, perhaps she was an epicure in words and did not like a cottage called Creeper; anyhow she shook them out.  And if they had had eyes to see they would not have walked into their new home with such sighs of satisfaction and such a comfortable feeling that now at last the era of systematic serenity and self-realization, beautifully combined with the daily exercise of charity, had begun; for waiting for them in Priscilla’s parlour, established indeed in her easy-chair by the fire and warming her miserable toes on the very hob, sat grey Ill Luck horribly squinting.