On the second day after the opera she was sitting at her Sheraton desk in the small nondescript room which opened off the dining-room.  In front of her lay a large tablet with innumerable names of things printed on it in three columns; opposite each name a little hole had been drilled, and in many of the holes little sticks of wood stood upright.  Leonora uprooted a stick, exiling it to a long horizontal row of holes at the top of the tablet, and then wrote in a pocket-book; she uprooted another stick and wrote again, so continuing till only a few sticks were left in the columns; these she spared.  Then she rang the bell for the parlourmaid and relinquished to her the tablet; the peculiar rite was over.

‘Is dinner ready?’ she asked, looking at the small clock which she usually carried about with her from room to room.

’Yes ‘m.’

’Then ring the gong.  And tell Carpenter I shall want the trap at a quarter past two, for two.  I’m going to shop in Hanbridge and then to meet Mr. Stanway at Knype.  We shall be in before four.  Have some tea ready.  And don’t forget the eclairs to-day, Bessie.’  She smiled.

’No ‘m.  Did you think on to write about them new dog-biscuits, ma’am?’

‘I’ll write now,’ said Leonora, and she turned to the desk.

The gong sounded; the dinner was brought in.  Through the doorway between the two rooms—­there was no door, only a portiere—­Leonora heard Ethel’s rather heavy footsteps.  ’I don’t think mother will want you to wait to-day, Bessie,’ Ethel’s voice said.  Then followed, after the maid’s exit, the noise of a dish-cover being lifted and dropped, and Ethel’s exclamation:  ‘Um!’ And then the voices of Rose and Millicent approached, in altercation.

‘Come along, mother,’ Ethel called out.

‘Coming,’ answered Leonora, putting the note in an envelope.

‘The idea!’ said Rose’s voice scornfully.

‘Yes,’ retorted Milly’s voice.  ‘The idea.’

Leonora listened as she wrote the address.

’You always were a conceited thing, Milly, and since this wonderful opera you’re positively ridiculous.  I almost wish I’d gone to it now, just to see what you were like.’

‘Ah well!  You just didn’t, and so you don’t know.’

’No indeed!  I’d got something better to do than watch a pack of amateurs——­’ There was a pause for silent contempt.

‘Well?  Keep it up, keep it up.’

‘Anyhow I’m perfectly certain father won’t let you go.’

‘I shall go.’

’And besides, I want to go to London, and you may be absolutely certain, my child, that he won’t let two of us go.’

‘I shall speak to him first.’

‘Oh no, you won’t.’

‘Shan’t I?  You’ll see.’

’No, you won’t.  Because it just happens that I spoke to him the night before last.  And he’s making inquiries and he’ll tell me to-night.  So what do you think of that?’