Having filled in the necessary form, and given it to the commissionaire, Gladys looked round for a seat, and espying one, next to a strikingly handsome girl, she at once appropriated it.

There was something about this showy girl that had attracted Gladys.  She was one of those rare people that have a personality, and although this was a personality that Gladys was not at all sure she liked, nevertheless she felt anxious to become more closely acquainted with it.  Both girls suddenly realized that they were staring hard at one another.  The girl with the personality was the first to speak.  With a smile that, while revealing a perfect set of white teeth, at the some time revealed exceedingly thin lips, she remarked, “It’s most wearisome work waiting.  I’ve been here nearly an hour.  I shouldn’t stay any longer, only I’ve come from a distance.  London is so hot and stuffy, I detest it.”

“Do you?” Gladys observed.  “I don’t.  I find it so full of human interest—­indeed, of every kind of interest.  Not that I should care to live in it, but I like being near enough to come up several times a week.  I live at Kew.”

“Then you’re lucky!” the girl said, “I’d live at Kew if I could.  But I can’t—­I’m one of those unfortunate creatures who have to earn their living.”

“I sometimes wish I had to,” Gladys remarked.

“Do you!  Then you don’t know much about it.  It isn’t all jam by a long way.  I loathe work.  I’ve been spending my holiday at Kew.  I’ve just come from there.”

“Are you by any chance Miss Rosenberg?” Gladys asked.

“That’s my name,” the girl replied with a look of astonishment.  “How do you know?”

Gladys explained.  “I’ve just been to the Vicarage,” she said, “and Mrs. Sprat has told me about the verses.  Did you really dream them?”

“Of course!  I shouldn’t have said so if I hadn’t,” Miss Rosenberg replied angrily.  “I don’t tell crams.  Besides, I’ve never composed a line of poetry in my life.  The verses were repeated to me in my sleep by some occult agency—­of that I am quite certain.  They were so vividly impressed on my mind that I had no difficulty at all in remembering them—­every one of them, and I got up and wrote them down.  Of course they must mean something.”

Gladys was about to make some observation, when the commissionaire, opening the door of the room, called out, “Miss Rosenberg;” whereupon, with a sigh of relief, Miss Rosenberg took her departure.

CHAPTER X

HOW THE DREAMS WERE INTERPRETED