“She comes as a sunbeam,” said the resident with obviously genuine admiration, “and, of course, with all the claims on her time, and her anxiety as to her husband’s health, we don’t wish her to come often.  She is just the inspiration we want.”

The hostess having meanwhile asked four people to dinner, came rustling back, and, sitting on a low stool opposite the lady of the settlement, held one of her visitor’s large hands in both her own and patted it and asked questions about a number of poor people by name, and made love to her in many ways, until the latter, cheered and refreshed by the sunbeam, went out to seek the first of a series of ’busses between Chelsea and Hoxton.

Mrs. Delaport Green gave a little sigh.

“I must order the motor.  The dear thing needn’t have come your very first night, need she?  It makes me miserable to leave you, but I was engaged to this dinner before I knew that you existed even!  Isn’t it odd to think of that?” Her voice was full of feeling.

“And you must be longing to go to your room.  You won’t have to dine with Tim, because he is dining at his club.  Promise me that you won’t let Tim bore you:  he likes horrid fat people, so I don’t think he will; and are you sure you have got everything you want?”

Molly’s impressions of her new surroundings were written a few weeks later in a letter to Miss Carew.

     “MY DEAR CAREY,—­

     “I have been here for three weeks, but I doubt if I shall stay
     three months.

“I am living with a very clever woman, and I am learning life fairly quickly and getting to know a number of people.  But I am not sure if either of us thinks our bargain quite worth while, though we are too wise to decide in a hurry.  There are great attractions:  the house, the clothes, the food, the servants, are absolutely perfect; the only thing not quite up to the mark in taste is the husband.  But she sees him very little, and I hardly exchange two words with him in the day, and his attitude towards us is that of a busy father towards his nursery.  But I rather suspect that he gets his own way when he chooses.  The servants work hard, and, I believe, honestly like her.  The clergyman of the parish, a really striking person, is enthusiastic; so is her husband’s doctor, so are one religious duchess and two mundane countesses.  I believe that it is impossible to enumerate the number and variety of the men who like her.  There are just one or two people who pose her, and Sir Edmund Grosse is one.  He snubs her, and so she makes up to him hard.  I must tell you that I have got quite intimate with Sir Edmund.  He is of a different school from most of the men I have seen.  He pays absurd compliments very naturally and cleverly, rather my idea of a Frenchman, but he is much more candid all the time.  I shock people here if I simply say I don’t like any one.  If you want to say anything against anybody you must begin by saying—­’Of